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KISSINGER NEWSWEEK ARTICLE 1/11/97

To suggest that a newly elected administration raise its standards to the level of world standards, the next millennium will likely may appear as an attempt of the blissfultrasity that follows us

The transition from election to inauguration tends to be an unnaturally tranquil period. The victor

relishes his success; the loser is busy analyzing the
cause of failure. Since it is too early to raise new
issues and too late to review old ones, the invocation
of bipartisanship often reflects an equilibrium
between exhaustion and conviction. For the incoming
administration, the temptation to prolong this
blissful state of affairs is nearly overwhelming.

In foreign policy, however, coasting stores up
perils. Events, however, have their own momentum; if not
mastered, they develop a logic which becomes
increasingly difficult to manage. This is a particular

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The first Clinton administration displayed considerable skill in extricating itself from foreign policy dilemmas, less aptitude for imposing a sense of direction. It often gave the impression of being more concerned with the domestic impact of its actions than with their long-term political implications.

Any administration, especially in its second term, wants to make a long-term difference. For that, administration must raise its sights to a vision of what it seeks to achieve, and only in that way will it be able to establish criteria for judging where it is heading.

A good example is the case of Bosnia, which can be summed up in this question: Will the American people support a substantial troop deployment in Bosnia in the next millennium? If the issue is posed in those terms, the answer is almost surely in the

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prolonged American participation in a war designed to impose a multi-ethnic state on populations which have been practicing genocide against each other, I prefer the second option, It would bring about an internationally recognized Muslim state with appropriate NATO (and perhaps UN) guarantees of its borders, which the Croat and Serb populations of Bosnia would be given the choice of either joining their compatriots or constituting themselves as independent entities.

Asia

To disengage in this manner from Bosnia is all the more important because, in the next century, we shall be obliged to deal with unprecedented structural changes in every continent. In Asia, China will emerge as an incipient superpower. When it reaches the per capita income of Korea (which is about a third of ours) its GNP will be double that of the United States. Such an

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interest in
no need to divide Asia into friendly and hostile areas

(2) Continuation of the alliance with Japan. It is the keystone of our Asian security policy. Were it not for the trend of events, to end or were it to be weakened, it would force Japan to rely on its own national forces. At the same time, we must take care to be sensitive to the historic fears of the Asian nations and conduct the alliance in such a way that it does not come to be perceived as a cover for a new wave of Japanese expansionism.

(3) Alliance with Korea to prevent aggression and to develop common positions on unification.

(4) Strategic dialogue with China. Finally, the fans of a strategic dialogue should raise the question of revisionism about the Cold War should not bring us illusions about what is involved in confrontation with the People's Republic of China.

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contributing to the openness and accountability of

---

China's military establishment.

These are mostly objectives. But they can hardly
constitute the Chinese purpose of a strategic
NORWAY needs a dialog on an
dialogue. The essence of that dialogue is a common
analysis of foreseeable changes in Asia and of the
means either to soften their impact or to distil
common approaches.

The future of Korea is a good example. The new
century will not be very far away before the issue of
Korean unification will become acute, if indeed it has
not happened before, the end of the second Clinton
term. The North Korean regime is clearly weakening,
White House improved
Militarily strong, it seems unable to take care of
the most elementary needs of its population. And with
modern communications, even the most repressive regime

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Korea is surrounded by major powers in a far stronger position to thwart or delay unification than the will respect to Germany. decrepit Soviet Union of 1989, these countries? will be at one about not wishing to see another Korean war; but their perceptions of what is at stake will differ. In the light of its implications for Vietnam, - China will be uneasy about the emergence - after Vietnam of yet another significant military power on its border, especially one that may galvanize the Korean minorities in Manchuria and Northeast China. It will surely maneuver to buttress the North Korean regime as long as possible and to achieve some degree of demilitarization of the North if unification becomes unavoidable.

-- Russia will share some of China's concerns, including a worry about North Korean ____ in the Maritime Provinces of Russia. But it will balance

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The Trans-Atlantic Relations

Three events will shape trans-Atlantic relations in the next *millennium*: (1) the emergence of the *common currency* of the European Union as a political entity, or *its failure* to challenge (2) the rise of Russia (3) the Atlantic policy of the United States.

(1) The European currency - the *Euro* - will have come into existence by the beginning of the *new millennium* for France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg as founding members, with Italy and Spain joining either from the beginning or within two years *afterwards*. The *challenge* will be less whether the founders can meet the agreed criteria for fiscal *discipline* when they establish *the common currency* than whether they *will be able* to maintain it *afterwards*. There are two possibilities: that the inability to maintain fiscal

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3644 WORDS

In foreign policy, however, coasting stores up perils. Events have their own momentum; if not mastered, they develop a logic which becomes increasingly difficult to manage. This is a particular

2

challenge for second-term administrations, which are
inherently lame-duck and lose the capacity for
implementing long-range decisions well before the end
of their tenure. The key choices must be made early
in the administration.

This is a particular challenge for Clinton's
second term in almost direct proportion to the
unusually tranquil first that had enabled it to avoid
major choices. It is not necessary to settle the
dispute between administration supporters giving
credit to skilful handling, and critics who point out
that all the other major powers were simultaneously
too preoccupied with domestic transitions to leave
attention and resources to international adventures.
Whatever the cause, this state of affairs cannot
continue through a second term.

3

The first Clinton administration displayed considerable skill in extricating itself from foreign policy dilemmas; less aptitude for imposing a sense of direction. It often gave the impression of being more concerned with the domestic impact of its actions than with their long-term political implications.

Any administration, especially in its second term, wants to make a long-term difference. For that, it must raise its sights to a vision of what it seeks to achieve, and criteria for judging where it is heading.

4

negative. But if the decisions are made on an ad hoc
basis, two outcomes are nearly certain. Either an
attempt to improve the political provisions of the
Dayton agreements by force, or a continuation of the
status quo, which implies a de facto partition of
Bosnia policed by NATO forces. Neither course can be
reconciled with the national interest of the United
States in the next millennium.

When the Clinton administration, after three
years of ambivalence, committed itself to imposing
peace on Bosnia, it did so in a manner better suited
to reconciling conflicting domestic American pressures
than to bringing about a long-term solution.
Separating the military and political provisions of
the Dayton agreement ended the bloody massacres and
ethnic cleansing that disgraced all the parties in the

5

civil war. But the means chosen were not only inherently stop-gap but were inconsistent with each other. The military provisions separated the Croat, Muslim and Serb contenders?. The political provisions provided for free movement of populations, return of refugees and other measures achievable only by a resumption of the civil war.

The dilemma is that enforcing the political provisions will land America in an open-ended Balkan civil war in which casualties will be unavoidable. Attempting to solve this problem by manipulating the successions in Belgrade and Zagreb will ensnare us in the obscure passions of Balkan domestic politics without criteria to find our way through them. Already, the presumptive successors in Croatia and Belgrade are using a more nationalist rhetoric than

6

the leaders they are [seeking to usurp]. In any event,
do we have the staying power for such a policy, either
politically or militarily?

But if we are content to rest on the military
provisions of the Dayton agreement, NATO forces will
be needed to police the ceasefire lines into the next
millennium. The risks will be mitigated because only
the Muslims are likely to challenge that arrangement.
Thus to avoid an open-ended military commitment in
Bosnia, the military and political provisions of the
Dayton agreement must be harmonized, either by
imposing the political provisions of the Dayton
agreement or by turning the armistice lines between
the ethnic groups into political lines to be defended
by the national forces of each side.

Since I see no American national interest in a

7

prolonged American participation in a war designed to impose a multi-ethnic state on populations which have been practicing genocide on each other, I prefer the second option. It would bring about an internationally recognized Muslim state with appropriate NATO (and perhaps UN) guarantees of its borders which the Croat and Serb populations of Bosnia would be given the choice of either joining their compatriots or constituting themselves as independent entities.

To disengage in this manner from Bosnia is all the more important because, in the next century, we will have to deal with unprecedented structural changes in every continent. In Asia, China will emerge as an incipient superpower. When it reaches the per capita income of Korea (which is about a third of ours) its GNP will be double that of the United States. Such an

8

economic colossus is bound to have a major impact on
all the surrounding countries. All of them will be
conscious of the vast market represented by China
that, in the hands of skilful leaders, is certain to
represent a significant political influence. And it
will be reinforced by China's growing military power.
Without doubt, China will play an increasingly
significant role in Asia in the 21st century.

Does that mean that China is destined for
hegemony? Without doubt, China's influence will grow.
But there are also countervailing trends. Japan will
be driven into a more national course by the end of a
bipolar world and the rise of other power centers all
around it - from India through Vietnam, China and
Korea. It will less and less believe that its
interests and those of the United States will always

9

be parallel. A greater emphasis on its own national
defense is inevitable, together with a foreign policy
more geared to national Japanese concerns. Japanese
foreign policy will become more comparable to its
economic policy: respectful of American priorities but
in the end driven by its own national interest. India
will play an increasingly active role in South and
Southeast Asia. And in the triangle bounded by
Vietnam, Myanmar? and Indonesia, the Asian nations
will increase their cohesion. The hegemony of any one
nation can occur only if all others collapse
internally or by a military effort of a scale for
which there is no evidence and which, if it occurred,
would evoke counteractive? pressures.

Nostalgists for the Cold War often propose
methods analogous to that period. They urge relentless

10
pressures on China (and for that matter other
countries of Asia such as Indonesia) to improve human
rights on the theory that democratization will produce
a more peaceful policy. They also urge a containment
policy of China on the model of our military alliances
in Europe.

Neither approach is relevant to the situation in
Asia. Efforts to pressure China on human rights have
failed for the past six years. And they reflect a
number of misconceptions. China's foreign policy is
not driven? so much by Communist ideology as by the
growth of nationalism. The economic pressures
operating in the Soviet Union would not apply to
China. The Chinese economy is not a Stalinist planned
system but what is described as a socialist market
economy in which the word "market" is operationally

11

more significant than the word "socialist." Its
biggest risk is overheating, not stagnation - as was
the case with the Soviet Union. Moreover, outside
pressures would not only be fiercely resisted but
would be bound to lag far behind the changes in
Chinese society that are produced by the
transformation of Chinese society caused by the
explosive growth of the economy.

As for containment on the model of the Cold War
anti-Soviet policy, there is simply no objective basis
for it. The Soviet Union's European neighbors felt
militarily threatened and were eager for visible
American support. Neither condition exists in Asia. No
neighbor of China will base its policy on the
postulate of Chinese military aggression or join an
alliance designed for that purpose. They want America

12

present sufficiently to discourage the idea that America would not be indifferent to their fate. But they know that China will be there permanently and, short of an extremity, will refuse to base their policy on hostility to China. Indeed, a confrontational American policy toward China perceived as unprovoked will drive the countries of Asia into dissociation from the United States, and to seek a middle position between us and China. Thus a containment policy will produce the opposite of the intention by fostering both nationalism and neutralism throughout Asia.

American policy toward Asia for the next century must have these components:

(1) Good relations with all the countries will give our diplomacy the greatest flexibility; we have

13

no need to divide Asia into friendly and hostile.

(2) Continuation of the alliance with Japan. It is the keystone of our Asian security policy. Were it to end or were it to be weakened, it would force Japan into a nationalist course far more dependent on its own national forces. At the same time, we must take care to be sensitive to the historic fears of the Asian nations and conduct the alliance in such a way - both in words and actions - that it does not come to be perceived as a cover for a new wave of Japanese expansionism.

(4) Strategic dialogue with China. A nostalgic revisionism about the Cold War should raise no illusions about what is involved in confrontation with

14

China. The Chinese economy is stronger; Chinese diplomacy is far more skilful?; Chinese society ultimately far more cohesive; the neighboring countries far more ambivalent.

Nor should American policy forego the possibility of political understandings with China. For the first half of the next century, its interest in the stability of Asia should parallel ours; indeed, its disagreements with several of its neighbors are greater than those of the United States. Nor will it have the military strength to dominate them by force. Thus China and the United States have a common interest, either to connect? their polices or to take the sting out of their disagreements.

The change in administration policy from harassment of China on human rights to a strategic

15

dialogue is therefore to be welcomed. What is still lacking is an administration explanation for its change of course. The dramatic and sudden reversal from near-military confrontation in March to the announcement of three? high-level visits runs the risk of being misunderstood as a purely tactical maneuver. Its effectiveness therefore depends on the content of the incipient strategic dialogue.

Until now, the administration, seeking to please as many domestic constituencies as possible, has always justified dialogue with China as a more effective way of bringing about China's transformation. And the agendas have reflected the emphasis on altering China's internal structure. For example, Secretary Perry explained his conversations with China's military officials as a means of

16

contributing to the openness and accountability of
China's military establishment.

These are mostly objectives. But they can hardly
constitute the Chinese purpose of a strategic
dialogue. The essence of that dialogue ____ a common
analysis of foreseeable changes in Asia and of the
means either to soften their impact or to distil
common approaches.

The future of Korea is a good example. The new
century will not be very old before the issue of
Korean unification will become acute, if indeed it has
not happened before the end of the second Clinton
term. The North Korean regime is clearly weakening.
Militarily strong, its seems unable to take care of
the most elementary needs of its population. And with
modern communications, even the most repressive regime

17

cannot succeed indefinitely to keep from its people
the disparity between its living standard and that of
the rest of the world, especially of South Korea.

A crisis could happen in any number of ways: a
collapse of the regime followed by peaceful
unification on the German model; a collapse of the
regime in which the successor insists on continued
independence; a North Korean military attack to force
international recognition of its continued existence,
perhaps buttressed by some kind of international
economic assistance. And there are many intermediary
positions.

Any transformation of Korea at the vortex of
Northeast Asia will have profound international
consequences for Korea's neighbors. Korean unification
will be even more complicated than even Germany's, for

18

Korea is surrounded by major powers in a far stronger position to thwart or delay unification than the decrepit Soviet Union of 1989. These countries? will be at one about not wishing to see another Korean war; but their perceptions of what is at stake will differ.

- China will be uneasy about the emergence - after Vietnam - of yet another significant military power on its border, especially one that may galvanize the Korean minorities in Manchuria and Northeast China. It will surely maneuver to buttress the North Korean regime as long as possible and to achieve some degree of demilitarization of the North if unification becomes unavoidable.

- Russia will share some of China's concerns, including a worry about North Korean ______ in the Maritime Provinces of Russia. But it will balance

19

these concerns with the vista? that a unified Korea
with China may, in a crisis, be available as a
possible auxiliary.

- Japan will regard Korean unification with
dismay. It will judge that a unified Korea will be
almost certain to base its foreign policy on anti-
Japanese feelings. And if, by then, the North Korean
nuclear potential still exists - as is extremely
likely - it will see in it an additional spur to its
own nuclear program.

The United States will be torn between its
support of the principle of self-determination and its
reluctance to face the implications of Northeast Asian
instability. These conflicting motivations are not
irreconcilable. But if fostering a previously agreed
general concept [means that] responses have to be

20

improvised, the prospects are much bleaker.

## The Gulf

In Asia, the next century will be dominated by countries whose borders and basic direction are fairly predictable. The challenge will be how to maintain an equilibrium between them. In the Gulf, all that is certain is the potential for causing huge political, military and economic instability. The power of the individual states is very limited, but their capacity for causing international chaos is nearly infinite. In 1973 the Gulf states found themselves in a position to raise oil prices by 37% in a three month period. The result was a financial and economic crisis lasting over ten years - threatening the global economic and financial system and during the course of which every incumbent democratic government, whether of the right

21

or the left, was defeated in elections.

Today the central importance of the Gulf is even greater. But the structure on which its surface stability rests... The two strongest nations - Iran and Iraq - are outlaw states. Iran is under sanctions by the United States; Iraq by the international community. The security of the area rests on two friendly countries - Saudi Arabia and Jordan. But Saudi Arabia is undergoing the torments of how to adapt an essentially feudal society to the modernization brought about by oil resources, global communications and the spread of education. And Jordan, bordering Iraq, Syria and Israel, has enough to occupy itself with its restless neighbors to be able to contribute decisively to regional stability.

Finally, there is Turkey, looking toward Iran and

22

Iraq on one set of frontiers, and toward Europe on another. It has been in many respects the anchor of our Mediterranean policy. But it is under pressure from the rise of fundamentalism, and it feels rejected by decades of American and European pressures over its policies in Cyprus and the Kurds.

This combination cannot possibly be maintained. If we can find no way of modifying the building blocs, we better prepare ourselves for the inevitable blow-up which will occur before the new century is very old, if not earlier.

It will not be possible to maintain indefinitely the stability of the Gulf against both Iran and Iraq. Nor will it be possible to maintain international support for the Iraqi sanctions very deep into the new millennium, if indeed until then. Or to conduct a

23

policy of keeping Iraq united as a potential obstacle
to Iran while fostering the autonomy of the Kurds and
of the Shiites around Basra through no-flight zones
and similar measures. I recognize that dealing with
Saddam Hussein presents insuperable problems and that
so far there has not been a shred of evidence that
Iran is prepared to abandon its support for terrorism.
Fortunately, there are no such obstacles in dealing
more constructively with Turkey.

If we cannot avoid a blow-up, it is important to
prepare for its consequences. The new foreign policy
team has no more urgent task than to assemble the best
minds it can find to devise an appropriate response to
an explosion in the Gulf or an upheaval in Saudi
Arabia. These are crises which cannot possibly be
dealt with by improvisation.

24

Trans-Atlantic Relations

Three events will shape trans-Atlantic relations
in the next millennium: (1) the emergence of the
European Union as a political entity, or its failure
(2) the rise of Russia (3) the Atlantic policy of the
United States.

(1) The European currency - the Ecu - will have
come into existence by the beginning of the millennium
for France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and
Luxembourg as founding members, with Italy and Spain
joining either from the beginning or within two years
afterwards. The challenge will be less whether the
founders can meet the agreed criteria for fiscal
discipline when they enter the common currency than
whether they can maintain it afterwards. There are two
possibilities: that the inability to maintain fiscal

25

discipline will set off an inflationary spiral, or
that the effort will trigger a political backlash.
Either of these contingencies will condemn Europe to
years of discord and division and will make it
difficult for it to participate effectively in the
world order described in this article.

The more favorable prospect is that the Ecu
succeeds and that, despite all doubts, a common fiscal
policy emerges. In that case, Europe will have made a
big step towards restoring its competitiveness. The
Ecu would emerge as a reserve currency next to the
United States as bond managers around the world use it
to hedge their dollar investments. For America, this
will be an unprecedented situation which could set off
either economic warfare or a new era of cooperation
depending on the statesmanship of both sides of the

(4)

26

Atlantic.

(2) The second fundamental event will be the recovery of Russia. After many ups and downs, Russia will, in the next millennium, restore its central authority. It will be far closer to a Pinochet or a Salazar kind of political structure than to a Western pluralistic system - though it will be far freer than under Communism. Once a legal system is established and a measure of predictability is introduced, the economy should begin to recover as well.

The West can influence that evolution at best marginally and it will have to get used to a Russia far more assertive than in the last decade of the 20th century, and historically nationalistic. This will be a disaster only for those to whom the purpose of foreign policy is to implement their favorite theories

27

of domestic evolution. But it raises two problems: to prevent the nationalism which will be an important vehicle of domestic cohesion from spilling over into a quest for the buffer zones with which Russia has assaulted the European equilibrium for centuries. At the same time, a place must be found for Russia to participate fully in the political constructions of the new millennium.

This requires the expansion of NATO to provide security for the nations of Central and Eastern Europe, which would otherwise be consigned to impotent appendages of the emerging Russian giant or as ____ as Russia and Germany seek to shape the future of a so-called neutral zone, either in collision or collusion.

But there must also be created a political body

28

embracing the key members of the Atlantic Alliance
plus Russia for the discussion of the political
evolution. The appropriate forum for this is the
European Security Conference. Charging NATO with both
talks waters down the Alliance and invites long-term
Russian pressure. The administration - the formative
experience of many of whose key figures was in the
Vietnam period and who consider the Cold War as at
least partially provoked by the United States - is
tempted to turn NATO into a political forum which, to
all practical purposes, includes Russia. This would
destroy NATO as a safety net and turn Russian policy
in traditional directions.

I have expressed my doubts about the attempt to
spread democracy around the globe by pressure or
persuasion. But I believe strongly that we should

29

promote democracy by promoting it where it exists:
especially the nations bordering the Atlantic and
within the Western Hemisphere. Between these nations
military conflict is nearly inconceivable; strategic
blackmail is a minimum. Here is the place to cultivate
the acts of cooperation and to foster the values and
institutions we treasure. For these reasons, I favor
rapid progress toward the Western Hemisphere Economic
Free Trade Area proposed by President Clinton and its
ultimate merging into an Atlantic Free Trade Area. In
that manner, the established democracies will be able
to brave the storms and seize the opportunities of the
next millennium.

JAN-11-1997 15:40

will need a vision of what it seeks to achieve and
judging whether it is leading criteria for dealing with foreseeable storms. In what follows, I will try to sketch the challenges which require attention, foreseeable crises and possible opportunities. It is not so much a list of answers as a catalogue of challenges that will have to be addressed.

## Possible Crisis Areas

**Bosnia:** The most visible crisis area is Bosnia. And the dilemmas it poses are legacies of the first Clinton administration. After three years of ambivalence, the administration committed itself to imposing peace on Bosnia... But it did so in a manner that was not acceptable to domestic pressures than to bringing about a long-term solution. It did so by separating the military provisions of the

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KISSINGER NEWSWEEK ARTICLE 1/9/97

The transition between election and inauguration
is generally unusually tranquil. The victor relishes
his success; the loser is busy analyzing the cause of
failure. It is too early to raise new issues and too
late to go over old ones. It is not obvious whether
the invocation of bipartisanship reflects exhaustion
or conviction. For the new administration, the
temptation to prolong this blissful state of affairs
is nearly overwhelming.

But an administration coasts at its peril. Events
have their own momentum; if not mastered early, they
can become overwhelming. And second-term
administrations being inherently lame-duck, lose the

2

capacity for controversial decisions well before the
end of their tenure. The key decision should be taken
as early in the administration as possible, if only to
shake down the new term and to enable the President to
judge its capacity to work together and to generate
effective policy.

This is a special challenge for Clinton's second
term for the first term has been unusually free of
crises. It is not necessary to settle the dispute
between administration supporters giving credit to
skilful handling, and critics who point out that all
other major powers were simultaneously preoccupied
with domestic transitions leaving little attention and
few resources for international adventures. Whatever
the cause, it is improbable that this state of affairs
can continue through a second term. Since the end of

3

the Second World War, there has never been such a long
period without crisis. And when policies have to be
improvised in the middle of a crisis, the potential
for disaster rises in direct proportion to the absence
of advance planning.

This is a particular challenge for the new
foreign policy team. The first Clinton term showed few
major achievements but it also avoided significant
setbacks. The administration displayed considerable
skill in extricating itself from foreign policy
dilemmas; less aptitude for imposing a ____. It often
gave the impression of being more concerned with the
domestic impact of its actions than with their long-
term strategic implications.

If the administration seeks to make a long-term
difference to America, it must raise its sights. It

4

will need a vision of what it seeks to achieve and
criteria for dealing with foreseeable storms. In what
follows, I will try to sketch the challenges which
require attention, foreseeable crises and possible
opportunities. It is not so much a list of answers as
a catalogue of challenges that will have to be
addressed.

## Possible Crisis Areas

**Bosnia:** The most visible crisis area is Bosnia. And the dilemmas it poses are legacies of the first Clinton administration. After three years of ambivalence, the administration committed itself to imposing peace on Bosnia. But it did so in a manner better designed to reconciling conflicting domestic pressures than to bringing about a long-term solution. It did so by separating the military provisions of the

5

Dayton agreement from the political ones. The military provisions separated the Serb, Croat and Muslim militias and [ended] the bloody menaces and ethnic cleansing that marked the civil war. The political provisions provide for free movement of populations, return of refugees and other measures achievable only by a resumption of the civil war. If the United States and its allies decide to enforce the political provisions, they will find themselves in a Somalia-type situation in a Balkan civil war in which casualties will be unavoidable. If they attempt to solve this problem by manipulating the obvious succession crises in Belgrade and Zagreb, they will find themselves enmeshed in the passionate obscurities of Balkan domestic politics without criteria to find our way through them. For example, it is more likely

6

that the preemptive? successors in Croatia and
Belgrade are even more nationalistic (they certainly
talk that way). In any event, do we have the staying
power for such a policy, either politically or
militarily?

But if we are content with relying? on the
military provisions of the Dayton agreement, NATO
forces will still be needed to police the ceasefire
lines for the indefinite future. The risks will be
somewhat less because only the Muslims are likely to
challenge that arrangement.

Whatever contingency is considered, the deadline
for the withdrawal of NATO forces can again not be met
unless one is prepared to tempt the outbreak of
another civil war. But the repeated postponement of
solemn deadlines will in due course undermine the

7

credibility of the entire policy. To avoid being
dragged by events into making these choices on an ad
hoc basis, the administration must decide now which
strand of its Bosnia policy it will emphasize and how
it plans to handle the certain requirement for
residual NATO forces. And it will have to develop a
public policy to support its decision.

**Korea:** A second potential flash point for the
second Clinton term is Korea. The North Korean regime
heavily armed? is visibly weakening. A crisis could
occur in one of three ways: (1) either the regime
believes that it needs to start some military action
to force international confirmation of its status as
an independent state, perhaps even forcing some kind
of economic assistance; (2) it may collapse bringing
about a unification of the Korean peninsula somewhat

8

on the German [model]; (3) a demonstration that North
Korea is not living up to the nuclear agreement with
the United States.

In either case, American policy will be
complicated by the fact that all of Korea's neighbors
will prefer its continued division to its unification.

For the first contingency, it will be necessary
to think through what strategy to pursue and what kind
of success will be tolerable for the neighboring
states without triggering their intervention. What
diplomacy needs to accompany victory? What should
accompany a stalemate? If the war ends with the status
quo ante, Pyongyang would have achieved its objective
of reaffirming its preeminence?. If it ends with the
present regime intact but under some disarmament
regimen, we would face on the Korean peninsula a

9

situation comparable to that in Iraq. Can we sustain
two such situations simultaneously? At a minimum, such
a war cannot be ended without eliminating North
Korea's nuclear capability.

If a war were to end with the collapse of the
North Korean regime, or if it disintegrates without
war, it is at least possible that China would urge a
successor (though not necessarily a Communist
government or some other form of ____ close to its
borders).

Japan will be profoundly disquieted because it
will believe that the thrust of the policy of a
unified Korea will be anti-Japanese. A unified Korea
will be anti-Japanese. A unified Korea - especially if
it comes about peacefully - will raise profound
questions about American deployments in Asia. China -

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and possibly the unified Korea - will press for the
withdrawal of American forces. The American
deployments in Japan will also become more vulnerable
to foreign and domestic pressures.

Nor is it clear how peacefully a unified Korea
would treat the nuclear agreement with Pyongyang, and
it is in a much stronger position to accelerate
progress dramatically. At a minimum, such a
development would guarantee a major Japanese military
nuclear program.