31

1 The Chairman: Mr. Secretary, all of us thank you for
2 your thoughtful discourse. You spoke mainly about Europe and
3 Asia, as you indicated.

4 May I impose on you by asking you now to work with us for
5 a mutually convenient date for you to return and to cover the
6 Middle East and South Asia and Latin America and Africa and
7 all the rest?

8 Dr. Kissinger: I would be delighted to do so,
9 Mr. Chairman.

10 The Chairman: I thank you very much.

11 Now, you mentioned Harry Wu, who is a personal friend of
12 mine and many on this committee. Do you have any advice,
13 specific advice, for both China and the United States about
14 how to resolve this difficult thing, because it cannot go on
15 like this?

16 Dr. Kissinger: Mr. Chairman, when I was in China, I had
17 the opportunity to speak to the Chinese leaders about the
18 urgent wisdom of releasing Harry Wu.

19 I believe that they should be given some opportunity to
20 reflect about the strong feelings that have been expressed by
21 many Americans, including myself, on this issue, and we should
22 try to avoid too much of a confrontation in the immediate
23 future to see whether, on reflection and in their assessment
24 of the impact of the continued detention of Harry Wu, on the
25 overall pattern of Sino-American relations they will not in

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1 the near future release him.

2 So I believe that now that everybody has had a chance to
3 express their views, if one could permit some interim period
4 for reflection in Beijing, after which of course everybody
5 will be free to pursue his convictions.

6 The Chairman: I will cooperate with that, and I am so
7 pleased that you discussed it with the Chinese leaders.

8 Incidentally, I have stipulated that we will have five-
9 minute questioning periods for each senator, because a number
10 of them wish to pose questions.

11 Much has been said about the new world order and what it
12 means to the United States. Sometimes I wonder if everybody
13 knows what he or she is talking about. But you need a program
14 to keep up with the changing names, faces and coalitions all
15 around the world.

16 Would you want to speculate, Mr. Secretary, about which
17 country should the United States work with to form the key
18 strategic relationships so that we can maintain a sort of
19 solidarity for the coming years?

20 Dr. Kissinger: Mr. Chairman, I believe that there does
21 not yet exist a new world order. What we are discussing here
22 is a new world order in the process of being formed. The old
23 one has disintegrated and no clear-cut pattern has yet
24 emerged.

25 The United States has two separate regions with

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which, in my view, we have strong ideological ties based on democracy,
those of the...

1. which, in my view, we should cooperate, or can cooperate, most.

2. ~~only~~, those of the Western Hemisphere and those of Europe.

3. There we can rely on cooperative transnational efforts to
4. create the necessary ties.

5. In other parts of the world, such as some areas of the
6. Middle East and Asia, as I have described, we have no choice
7. (except to resist tendencies, we should resist inimical
8. tendencies everywhere, not only there.)

9. But then we would have to rely more on traditional
10. patterns of balance of power and equilibrium.

11. As I have said, in Asia we have of course an alliance
12. with Japan and we should cultivate it. But we should take
13. care not to get into a permanent hostility with any other
14. major nation because I believe the evolution in the area will
15. be such that we can benefit from a good relation with all of
16. them at strategic moments.

17. With respect to the Middle East, we will have to resist, ...
18. should cooperate ~~with others~~ in resisting certain aspects of
19. Islamic fundamentalism. And totally new possibilities open up
20. in relations with India and other countries that in the past
21. were not participating in the international system.

22. But nations practicing terrorism, nations practicing the
23. violent overthrow of their neighbors, when that affects
24. fundamental American interests, we should resist.

25. The Chairman: Thank you. My time is up.

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1 Senator Pell.

2 Senator Pell: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

3 I would like to follow up on a point in my opening
4 statement that time is on our side if we can avoid hostility
5 and killing.

6 And would you concur that with time, several decades,
7 that present mainland China will evolve, as have other
8 countries of communist domination, will evolve into a free
9 market country and that there will be very little difference
10 in viewpoint between Taiwan and mainland China and one China
11 will be achieved without bloodshed?

12 Dr. Kissinger: Present day mainland China, People's
13 Republic of China, practices a political system of which I do
14 not approve. At the same time, I have been going to China for
15 25 years. And the improvement in the standard of living of
16 the population is almost unbelievable.

17 Secondly, the freewheeling market economics that is
18 beginning to take hold in major areas of the country [makes some sort of political changes inevitable]
19 ~~some sort of~~ political changes ~~inevitable,~~ because it is necessary to
20 have more predictability and transparency in the legal system.

21 So some progression towards constitutionalism is certain.
22 How far it will go in a country of 1,200,000,000 population, I
23 am not prepared to predict.

24 As for relations between China and Taiwan, the United
25 States has taken 2 positions for 23 years. One, we recognize

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1 one China. Second, we urge ~~dissolution~~ of the one China

2 problem by peaceful means.

3 I believe that Taiwan has prospered under this

4 arrangement with an extraordinary economy, progress in its own

5 domestic institutions.

6 And mainland China, People's Republic of China, has made

7 proposals earlier this year which probably do not meet all

8 that Taiwanese leaders are looking for, but that granted

9 independent armed forces on Taiwan and a very substantial

10 measure, ~~total measure~~, of self-government.

11 Now, I believe those issues to be discussed between

12 Taiwan and the United States and the People's Republic of

13 China, with the United States not intervening in the process,

14 especially so long as it is conducted peacefully.

15 And I believe that with evolution on both sides, there is

16 a good possibility of finding some Chinese solution, some

17 practical arrangement that maintains the principle of one

18 China and yet the ability of the people of Taiwan to determine

19 their own internal fate.

20 Senator Pell: Would you concur that inevitably the China

21 People's Republic, mainland China, will evolve? We see this

22 in the other countries around the world. Communism is an

23 unnatural system, that it is antipathetic to most people; and,

24 therefore, the -- and let it start to exercise its

25 influence --

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Dr. Kissinger: I believe that the classic Stalinist version of communism in economic management has already been given up. And [Deng] once said he does not care whether a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice, which is a very pragmatic [non-ideological] approach.

How far this process will go, in the political field in a society based on [Confucian] values, I do not want to predict. [I think it is highly probable that the classic... But the classic communist system will be substantially modified by the internal evolution of China, [it] is highly probable.]

Senator Pell: Turning your attention on Russia for a moment: You mentioned earlier the relationship with NATO. Do you believe that Russia at some point will join NATO?

Dr. Kissinger: I do not believe Russia should be invited to join NATO. [I do not see how] I think once NATO is extended to Vladivostok, its coherence will disappear. I am in favor of the expansion of NATO to the Visegrad countries.

I believe we should have close relations with Russia in the economic field and engage in intensive political consultation with it. But joining NATO will mean the turning of NATO into a vague UN-type multilateral institution which will mean the end of NATO as we have known it.

Senator Pell: Thank you very much.

The Chairman: Senator Lugar.

Senator Lugar: Dr. Kissinger, earlier you characterized

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1 a generational problem and suggested that some persons of the

2 Vietnam era believe that the use of American authority and

3 power might always verge on the immoral and suggested,

4 following that, that democrats have moved in some cases toward

5 excessive multilateralism.

6 Charges made recently by Republicans that they have moved

7 likewise to define national interest so narrowly, or it is so

8 difficult to find them, that the use of authority would be

9 very, very difficult to employ. And some have suggested this

10 is a return to a so-called policy of realism.

11 Let me ask you, because you are often identified as the

12 architect of foreign policy during President Nixon's and

13 President Ford's era, to characterize the difference of that

14 with President Reagan's era.

15 President Reagan, for example, suggested total victory

16 over communism, which is a very large, broad, idealistic

17 stroke. And likewise, Reagan proceeded really to talk about

18 the end of the nuclear holocaust, made it a very, very large

19 objective. There were pragmatic strains certainly in this.

20 I mention this because I have a quote from your book in

21 diplomacy that you said for the third time in this century the

22 United States might succumb to the temptation to recast the

23 international environment in America's image. And in a way

24 you have reiterated that in some ways in your work today.

25 Was President Reagan wrong? In other words, should we

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1 not have in fact moved toward broader goals of idealism and

2 what might be called almost a messianic thought? It worked

3 essentially.

4 Dr. Kissinger: America has always had an idealistic,

5 even a messianic conviction. And it would not be America if

6 it abandoned this. But the difference between the Nixon

7 period and the Reagan period has to be seen in part in the

8 international environment.

9 President Nixon came into office when there were 550,000

10 Americans in Vietnam and the streets of Washington were

11 blocked by demonstrators who were accusing their government of

12 insufficient dedication to peace.

13 The Soviet Union had just taken over Czechoslovakia, and

14 the United States had no diplomatic relations of any kind with

15 China.

16 In this atmosphere, the first requirement was to restore

17 some flexibility to American foreign policy and to make it

18 clear that America had its own vision for a peaceful world order.

19 And we did not have the options that President Reagan later

20 had--partly as a result of the Nixon Administration policy.

21 puling.

22 And, frankly, if President Reagan's rhetoric had been

23 used in 1969, I shudder to think what would have happened in

24 terms of all the demonstrations.

25 By 1980, I would like to think that the policies pursued in the Nixon and Ford Administrations preserved the free world

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1 and stopped the Soviet advance. And, in fact, there were

2 signs of Soviet decline.

3 And I believe that the Reagan rhetoric, __and I have said__,

4 __so in my book__ was very necessary, very important, for what

5 later came to be known as victory in the cold war.

6 So I do not look at those two policies as alternatives to

7 each other. Of course there are differences in personalities.

8 President Nixon was more cerebral and President Reagan had

9 this extraordinary quality to instill fundamental values a few

10 sentences, __which was very crucial__.

11 But I do not look at those policies as alternatives to

12 each other. And I tend to think both of them would have tried

13 to do what the other did, although each of them was better

14 suited for the period in which he served.

15 Senator Lugar: Well, I thank you for a very important

16 analysis.

17 Thank you very much.

18 The Chairman: Senator Kassebaum.

19 Senator Kassebaum: Thank you, Dr. Kissinger, for an

20 extremely thoughtful analysis. And as the chairman said,

21 there are a lot of other areas of the world. We would like to

22 have you come back and give us further insights.

23 I particularly enjoyed, and felt it very important, your

24 analysis of the Sino-American relationship and your

25 suggestions for what you felt was of crucial importance right

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1 now, and I would agree with you on that.

2 Let me go back to Russia a minute. Because of President

3 Yeltsin's health condition recently there have been questions

4 raised about succession again. And I just wonder if you had

5 any particular thoughts on what you see happening over the

6 next ten years in Russia and the question of succession.

7 Dr. Kissinger: The United States has sort of a tendency,

8 what I call a psychiatric approach to foreign policy, in which

9 we tend to think that the analogies of individual leaders is

10 the key to good relations.

acted

11 And we had that problem in the Gorbachev period. We had

12 it already in the communist period when, during World War II,

13 Joseph Stalin, who had just murdered 20 million of his own

14 people, suddenly became good old Uncle Joe when he was

15 cooperating with us.

16 Now, we had that period in the Gorbachev period, where

17 Gorbachev, who deserves a lot of credit, was considered the

18 key to the relationship.

19 And then it went on to Yeltsin. I do not think we can

20 manage the Russian domestic process well enough for us to rely

21 on one leader.

22 And we should not let ourselves get pressured by the

23 threat that a particular Russian leader will be jeopardized if

24 we do things that we have well considered in the American

25 national interest.

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Therefore the key to good Russo-American relations lies in policies not personalities, specifically that Russian troops remain for...

41

1 Yeltsin is now governing more or less by decree, and he
2 is engaged in a series of fairly violent acts. There are
3 Russian troops on the territories of many neighboring
4 republics.
5 Therefore, this in politics is not permitted.

5 And I would ask the key to good Russo-American relations.

6 The Russian troops estar for the first time in 400 years

7 within their territory. That territory extends from

8 St. Petersburg to Vladivostok. That is ten time zones.

9 And St. Petersburg is closer to New York than to
10 Vladivostok, which is closer to Seattle than to Moscow. So
11 they should not feel claustrophobic.

12 [Laughter.]

13 Dr. Kissinger: So I think this is the key to a good
14 relationship. They have a right not to feel threatened. But
15 with 20,000 nuclear weapons, the threat of an invasion from
16 Europe is nonexistent.

17 And I would go along with a concept whereby no foreign
18 troops would be stationed on the territory of new NATO members
19 like Poland, as is done in Eastern Germany.

20 That security concern can be met. But this attempt to
21 start to play domestic politics in Russia is doomed. And we
22 should have a policy that reasonable Russians can support,
23 making it clear that their interests are respected, but we
24 cannot tie our future to one man.

25 Senator Kassebaum: I think that is true, and I suppose

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1 we have tended to do that just because in trying to, in the
2 earlier years, with such a closed society it was very hard and
3 what you saw was very strong control and visibility of the
4 dictatorship essentially there, and trying to readjust, as
5 they are trying to struggle, is important to understand.

6 Let me just move on to NATO for a moment, because I have
7 always been one who has questioned actually expansion of NATO
8 simply because I was not sure we fully understood what we
9 wanted NATO to be or do at this point in time.

10 And I thought when you said it will become increasingly
11 contradictory unless we have some better understanding. Is
12 that correct, that your own thoughts --

13 Dr. Kissinger: I am worried. If the border of NATO is
14 the border of Germany, then we have a gray area between
15 Germany and Russia. And even well-meaning leaders in both of
16 these countries will be tempted to fill this vacuum on a
17 national basis on security grounds. [only if only]

18 And we will then get a national conflict between Russia
19 and Germany or some agreement between Russia and Germany over
20 the body of demoralized Eastern Europe.

21 And when you think that the President -- when I met the
22 President of Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic, we was a
23 well-meaning left-oriented pacifist/European intellectual, somewhat pacifist
24 hugely attractive.

25 Now he is one of the most passionate advocates of Czech

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1 membership in NATO, one of the most passionate advocates

2 together with the Polish leaders.

3 So I think it is better to define where Europe begins and

4 ends, establish NATO expansion, expand the European Union as

5 quickly as possible. And on that basis, have a very

6 cooperative relationship with Russia rather than to create a

7 gray zone which tempts nationalism.

8 Senator Kassebaum: Mr. Chairman, my time is out.

9 I was not thinking so much of it in relationship to what
10 our own sensibilities might be towards Russia or what Russia
11 thinks of NATO, but more, we were prepared to make a
12 commitment and an understanding of what the goals of NATO were
13 going to be.

14 We have seen NATO now in kind of a quasi-role in Bosnia.

15 And the whole question of alliances, really, I think, is
16 brought into play in that situation.

17 Dr. Kissinger: Well, in Bosnia, nobody has ever managed
18 to relate objectives to what they were willing to pay for it.
19 And when such a gap exists, paralysis is inevitable.

20 Senator Kassebaum: Thank you very much.

21 The Chairman: Mr. Secretary, the absence of senators
22 does not mean very much except that all committees are meeting
23 this morning. And ever so often I have a difficulty getting a
24 quorum here, and we beg and plead.

25 Senator Feinstein, for example, when she left, she leaned

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1 over and said, "I am deeply interested and I am going to try
to get back, but they need me for a quorum."

3 So did Senator Feingold. I hope they will be able to
come back, but I wanted you to know that it is not lack of
interest on behalf of the members.

6 Senator Snowe: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

7 I certainly want to welcome you, Dr. Kissinger, to our
committee and for sharing your views of the future and how we
should define our foreign policy and the challenges we face.

10 I want to follow up on what Senator Kassebaum was asking
with respect to NATO, because I do think that is a critical
issue that has yet to be defined by our country in terms of
what the future mission of NATO should be.

14 Do you feel that the mission should change at all?
15 Because I know that you have said that the political role of
16 the alliance should be given greater emphasis. And, of
17 course, NATO has been a military role. So I wonder if you
18 think that that mission should change at all.

19 Dr. Kissinger: Well, I think it is important for us to
20 set up some method of consultation with the Europeans and
21 NATO.

22 Right now NATO is the only organization which can be useful in dealing with such issues as fundamentalism and some of the issues that will arise if North Africa should suddenly become fundamentalist.

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I am not saying that we should commit ourselves to a

military role in North Africa, but if suddenly a million

people show up as refugees and evolutionally starts, I believe

the consultant role should be expanded.

Within the traditional orbit of NATO, as I have stated, I

believe that the East European countries should be, or some of

them should be added to it.

Bosnia is a terrible example, because no clear-cut

mission was ever defined of what they were supposed to do and

what the common objective is.

And it does not exactly make for NATO cohesion if the

United States says: you go on ahead, but we cannot risk our own lives

participate. So there is clearly not a common willingness to

share burden. These are, however, issues that must be

addressed. you go on ahead and put in forces, but we will not risk our own lives. So there is clearly not a...

Senator Snowe: Should those issues be addressed prior to
expanding the membership to the four countries you mentioned?

Dr. Kissinger: No, because I think that tremendous

ingenuity has been developed in a series of fall-back

positions, first of all, rejecting expansion; then agreeing to
expansion but never discussing what it means and then starting

an endless program.

I think the East European countries should be added to

the existing NATO institutions and then whatever redefinition

is outside the areas occurring should take place then.

and on that basis a definition of
relations with Russia should take place then.

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1 Senator Snowe: How would you characterize the
2 administration's role in whether or not it has been proactive
3 engaging in discussion with our allies with respect to the
4 mission of NATO?

5 Dr. Kissinger: There is no doubt that the administration
6 started out opposed to NATO expansion. And if you read
7 President Clinton's speeches, they are really arguing that the
8 expansion of NATO creates new divisions and offers the
9 Partnership for Peace, which is an alternative which is
10 something else. It is not the expansion of NATO.

11 Lately the administration has said that it is for
12 expansion, but as I put in my statement, it is not clear to
13 me, frankly, whether this is put in to calm down those who
14 advocate expansion without committing themselves to a program
15 where it will actually happen.

16 I can understand if the administration would like to
17 delay the actual decision until after the Russian election
18 next year, but I think after that a rapid decision should be
19 made one way or the other.

20 And I think the administration is divided between some
21 who more or less say the view I have expressed and others who
22 really hold the view that was in the original administration's
23 position.

24 Senator Snowe: So you feel we could expand the
25 membership and at the same time maintain the classic military

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1 definition and role of NATO without antagonizing Russia?

2 You said in response to Senator Kassebaum's question that

3 one step that could be taken was positioning troops on the

4 border of Poland. Would there be any other steps that --

5 Dr. Kissinger: I think Russia will have enough

6 challenges ~~on-ethos banders~~ that it will not easily adopt a

7 policy of confrontation with the United States. To ask

8 Russian agreement to NATO expansion is either to give them a

9 veto or to get into an endless debate ~~(bound to be inconclusive.)~~

10 Russia should be consulted on major international issues,

11 but we cannot make our security systems depend on the Russian

12 approval. I do not believe it would produce any long-term

13 adversarial relationship with Russia.

14 The Chairman: Mr. Secretary, you have endured enough to

15 state your opinion about the proposal of this committee to

16 consolidate and reorganize and so forth. That is well known,

17 and I appreciate your candor and your support.

18 But I am obliged to take note, with some amusement, of

19 how often the words of isolationist and unilateralist and

20 multilateralist have been thrown around, even by the President

21 of the United States with reference to this well-intended plan

22 that we have proposed.

23 Now, I do not want to lead the witness, and yet I want to

24 lead the witness I guess I must confess, but do you believe

25 that consolidation of foreign affairs agencies makes good

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1 sense?

2 And do you believe as we do, at least the majority, that

3 it will save the American taxpayers money?

4 Dr. Kissinger: I supported the proposal for
5 consolidation in a letter to you, as did, I believe, every
6 other former Secretary of State. And the reason -- and none
7 of us would consider ourselves isolationists --

8 The Chairman: Certainly not you.

9 Dr. Kissinger: So the reason is that any of us who have
10 experience with the AID agency have found it to be a hidebound
11 bureaucracy which is not very responsive to policy direction.
12 And we found a big gap between trying to get them to support
13 specific policies simply in terms of the time it takes to
14 make decisions. Initiatives policy initiatives simply because they are so ponderous in making decisions

15 With respect to the Arms Control Agency, it performed an
16 important function when it was started to call attention to
17 the importance of the subject.

18 But I believe this issue has now become such an intricate
19 part of our foreign policy that it should be conducted by the
20 Secretary of State in normal channels.

21 I have not studied whether it would save money, but I
22 would be disappointed if it did not. All I can say is almost
23 everybody who has conducted foreign policy has favored this
24 proposal.

25 And I suspect if truth serum were given to Secretary

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1 Christopher, he would probably be induced to support it, too.

2 [Laughter.]

3 The Chairman: As you know, on a lesser scale than you
did when you were Secretary, this committee plays host to
foreign heads of state and others.

6 And a number of them have whispered in my ear, or spoken
out loud, almost with humor about the way the foreign aid
program of the United States has been operated.

9 I will call one name, a delightful lady who has been the
Prime Minister of Dominica, Eugenia Charles, and she likes
you. But she came in to see me, oh, two or three weeks ago,
and she had a smile on her face.

13 She said, "Well, I see you are having difficulty with
some of the people downtown," she said, "about foreign aid."

15 And she said, "You know, Senator, the trouble is that it
costs the United States' taxpayers more to give away money
than you give away," which is about the size of it.

18 And then you consider the bureaucracy that has been
built; 600 people stationed in Cairo in the embassy to give
away foreign aid. It just does not make any sense, and there
is a lot going on.

22 Senator Pell, we are on the second round, now.

23 Senator Pell: Thank you very much, sir.

24 The Chairman: Excuse me. I am sorry. I did not --

25 Senator Ashcroft has come in.

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1 Senator Pell: Certainly.

2 Senator Ashcroft: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

3 And, Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for spending your
time with the committee. I regret other pressing events kept
me away earlier, but I did get a chance to see parts of your
testimony on television.

7 Both in the United States and in the former Soviet Union,
Washington and Moscow are seeing a devolution movement, it
seems to me, in terms of power. And for eastern regions of
Russia, the industrial Ural region, both have relatively
strong militaries and strong resource-rich areas.

12 If the citizens of those areas feel on a continuing basis
more alienated from Moscow, do you think there is a chance
that we would see further fragmentation in the geography of
the eastern former Soviet Union, i.e. independent republics?

16 Dr. Kissinger: I think the danger of fragmentation in
the former Soviet Union arises in those territories that were
added to the ethnic Russian area in the close of the centuries
since Peter the Great, and that was in all directions.

20 So places like Chechnya which have a distinct national or
ethnic identity have always a possibility for uprisings.

22 And there is a Tartar republic, which had made a move
towards its autonomy and maybe even independence, but I think
they have been brought into line.

25 In the Urals and in Siberia, which is mostly populated by

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1 a Russian population, I do not see that happening very quickly

2 or at all. In the Urals not at all, and in Siberia it could

3 happen only if Siberia developed economically in some manner

4 that was dramatically different, ~~from the rest~~ of Russia. But I do not expect it.

5 Senator Ashcroft: Thank you very much.

6 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

7 The Chairman: Thank you, Senator.

8 Senator Pell.

9 Senator Pell: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

10 I do not think this morning we have touched on the
11 question of the effectiveness of the United Nations, why it
12 has not met the desires it has always had. I have been a long
13 believer in it and share the sense of frustration that we see
14 going on in the Balkans at this time.

15 What happened in Srebrenica is almost like what happened
16 to the League of Nations when the Emperor of Abyssinia asked
17 for help, and the world turned him down and the Italians
18 invaded.

19 What is happening in Bosnia could resemble that same
20 operation, that same event. How could we prevent that
21 happening? And do you have any suggestions as to how the
22 United Nations could achieve a position of greater leverage?

23 Dr. Kissinger: I think as a general proposition the
24 United Nations should never be put into a peacemaking role.

25 When two parties have agreed on a settlement and the question is

issue

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1 is a factual determination of whether the settlement is being
2 observed and to prevent violations at the fringes of it, then
3 the United Nations peacekeeping operations can perform a
4 useful function, as they have on the Golan Heights, in Cyprus and
5 in Cambodia, and many other places.

~~4 on the Golan Heights, in Cyprus~~

6 When, however, the two parties do not agree and when war
7 continues, then to have the United Nations in a peacekeeping
8 role that is to impose a settlement on reluctant parties will
9 wreck the United Nations, because they do not have the command
10 structure; they do not have the unity of purpose to do it.

~~11 and ~~4,5~~ rules

11 And ~~4,5~~, they also always adopt ~~rules~~ of engagement
12 which tempt aggression, because they will always want to have
13 an exactly proportionate response to the challenge. But a
14 proportionate response makes it very calculable.

~~15 So this is what got us into trouble in Somalia, where the~~
16 UN ~~4,5~~, tried to create a ~~government among warring~~
17 factions. And it got us into the present situation in Bosnia
18 too.

~~19 I think the United Nations should not be asked to do~~
20 things it cannot do. And to put NATO under the United Nations
21 turns it into an absurdity. There are many useful things the
22 United Nations can do, but peacemaking is not one of them.

23 Senator Pell: Well, the United -- NATO could be a
24 regional organization under the umbrella of NATO -- under the
25 umbrella of the United Nations.

15 So this is what got us into trouble in Somalia, where the
16 UN ~~4,5~~, tried to create a ~~government among warring~~
17 factions. And it got us into the present situation in Bosnia
18 too.

20 I think the United Nations should not be asked to do
21 things it cannot do. And to put NATO under the United Nations
22 turns it into an absurdity. There are many useful things the
23 United Nations can do, but peacemaking is not one of them.

24 Senator Pell: Well, the United -- NATO could be a
25 regional organization under the umbrella of NATO -- under the
26 umbrella of the United Nations.

19 I think the United Nations should not be asked to do
20 things it cannot do. And to put NATO under the United Nations
21 turns it into an absurdity. There are many useful things the
22 United Nations can do, but peacemaking is not one of them.

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Dr. Kissinger: We have never determined what exactly we are trying to accomplish. I mean, what exactly are we trying to accomplish in Bosnia?

And in the absence of any evidence, are we trying to get the Serbs back to the borders of Bosnia? Are we trying to get the war stopped? Are we trying to prevent ethnic cleansing? Each of these has its own requirements.

And I think, in retrospect, if early on NATO had taken the position, "Whatever happens in other nations of the world, in Europe, we do not tolerate ethnic cleansing. We do not take any position on the other issues," it might be NATO might have been effective.

But the United Nations machinery does not have the command structure to do this.

Senator Pell: Do you think -- bearing along with your thought, do you believe that for that reason we should pull UNPROFOR out and lift the arms embargo?

Dr. Kissinger: What has happened in the last few days is sort of appalling. I have been told that to get the UN forces out may take half a year and 60,000 troops.

Well, you send in 60,000 troops to get out 10,000 troops, then it will probably wind up that the rescuing force will be trapped there. And none of the parties have any interest in this thing succeeding. So I am very, very uneasy about sending American troops in there on such an ill-defined

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1 mission.

2 Now, on lifting the arms embargo, which probably it
3 should not have been established, it was iniquitous and
4 unjust, two points. One is, we are trying to keep -- get the
5 UN to maintain the embargo against Iraq.

6 So if we unilaterally lift an embargo on Yugoslavia, we
7 have to weigh that against what the consequences will be in
8 other parts of the world where we are trying to maintain good
9 position.

10 Secondly, if we pull out the UN force and simultaneously
11 put in arms, a Serbian offensive is guaranteed, while this is going on, they are not going to sit there and let
12 this develop.

13 So unless we have an answer to that question, until we
14 are willing to answer all of these questions, we should be
15 very careful.

16 Basically I think the UN forces should be pulled out.
17 Basically I think the arms embargo probably should be lifted.
18 But as a practical matter, how to lift the embargo. I would
19 prefer to do that through the UN in this case, because the UN has established an arms embargo against Iraq.

20
21
22 Secondly, I would like to see a plan how this gets done
23 without getting us embroiled in the passions of this conflict.
24 And what is the next sequence of events? But I just cannot
25 visualize putting in 60,000 troops to get out 10,000.

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1 And then what are we going to do with the last 10,000 of
2 the 60,000?

3 The Chairman: Mr. Secretary, I see a lot of heads
4 nodding our there in the audience.

5 Senator Snowe.

7 It sort of falls on to what Senator Pell has been
discussing with respect to the United Nations. And I think
8 there has been, and you refer to it in your statement and I
9 would like to have you expand on it, the administration
10 definitely has been emphasizing a multilateral approach with
11 respect to our foreign policy. In fact, it is called
12 assertive multilateralism.
13

14 And there has been no question, an emphasis on engaging
15 the United Nations, and if not the United Nations, our allies,
16 in taking the same approach, otherwise we refrain from taking
17 that action.

18 And recently there is an issue before this committee, and
19 it will certainly be an issue on the floor, that I am
20 concerned about, is the administration has decided to share
21 intelligence with the United Nations.

22 And that has compromised our intelligence. In fact,
23 information and sensitive materials have been left without
24 protection.

25 And so what is interesting about that, regardless of

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1 whether or not it is in our interest to share that
2 information, they will share that information with the United
3 Nations because they think that ultimately it would be in our
4 interest, even though many of those countries with whom we
5 share that information might not share the same goals.

6 Can you comment on the approach the administration has
taken with respect to multilateralism? Because I think it has
7 confused our objectives in terms of when we take action that
8 is in our own national interest and when it is in our interest
9 to advance our national interest in conjunction with other
countries. 10
11

12 For example, the administration sought approval of the
13 Security Council to go into Haiti, which is unprecedented in
14 our hemisphere in seeking such approval and authority.

15 Dr. Kissinger: To take your last issue first, I was
16 strongly opposed to going to the United Nations to get
17 approval for going into Haiti, because it seemed to me to
18 violate all the principles of the inter-American system that
19 has been established for 200 years.

20 We have always taken the position that no outside the
21 Western Hemisphere nation can take a position on military
22 actions within the Western Hemisphere.

23 And by bringing in these nations instead of going to the
24 OAS, we established a totally new principle of foreign policy.
25 And the reason we did not go to the OAS is because we

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1 knew we would not get support. But that is a funny kind of
2 multilateralism if you do not go to the multilateral
3 institutions that have historically been designed for that
4 purpose.

5 Now, as I said in my statement, I do not think one should
6 draw a sharp distinction here between interest and
7 multilateralism.

8 Historically many of the present multilateralists came up
9 with the multilateralist idea to reduce American action
10 abroad, ~~not to increase~~ is by submitting it to a United
11 Nations consensus.

12 I would define the basic issue as follows. It is of
13 course generally better to have international support, but is
14 it an international support that is generated by American
15 leadership or do we go to a multilateral body and say, "Here
16 is the problem, and whatever you decide we will then support."

17 In the Gulf War, once we had sent 200,000 troops to Saudi
18 Arabia, it seems obvious that we would have to use them
19 because we could not withdraw them without undermining our
20 position.

21 Therefore, going to the United Nations was a way to give
22 other nations a sense of participation, which was encouraged
23 by the fact that they knew the high probability was that we
24 would act even without their approval.

25 In the Korean War we had pretty well decided to go. And

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1 therefore, when you have strong American leadership and it can
2 enlist international support, you are in the strongest
3 position.

4 If, on the other hand, ~~you say that you cannot act unless~~
5 you know ~~what the other nations -- if~~ you leave it up to a
6 kind of an abstract determination, then you have the sort of
7 multilateralism that I would think would stultify foreign
8 policy. That is the real issue.

9 It is not between "Do we -- do we act by preference
10 alone?"

11 By preference we would act with others. But if the issue
12 is important enough, the others have to know that if it is
13 really important, we will act alone.

14 Senator Snowe: I guess my time is up.

15 The Chairman: Go ahead.

16 Senator Snowe: With respect to Bosnia and lifting the
17 arms embargo, I know you mentioned we should get UN approval
18 at this point. Has it always been the case that we could not
19 have acted unilaterally on that issue in lifting the embargo?

20 Dr. Kissinger: I think Bosnia was mishandled from the
21 beginning. And I am willing to say, in the previous
22 administration, too, because I hold the view that Bosnia
23 should never have been created as a state, because there has
24 never been a Bosnian state. There is no ethnic
25 identity or cultural identity or linguistic identity.

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And to try to bring Serbs, Croats and Muslims who hate each other into a small Bosnia, when they could not live together in a large Yugoslavia, has never been clear to me.

But once that was done, I believe we should have at the beginning resisted ethnic cleansing, ~~without~~ taking a position ~~of whether those other units could be autonomous.~~

And if that had been done from the beginning before the situation reached the present proportions, it might have worked.

~~I personally~~ -- when the Serbs shelled Dubrovnik which was a long time ago, I thought that is when we should have said, "This will not be permitted in Europe."

Senator Snowe: Thank you.

The Chairman: Senator Ashcroft.

Senator Ashcroft: If I might pursue that, just because it might be instructive in the future: When the shelling of Dubrovnik took place, what kinds of things would you have suggested for --

Dr. Kissinger: Well, you know, at the beginning these were relatively minor matters. These were not huge operations, ~~And I think we could have interposed ourselves,~~ with ~~Estonian~~ units (or the European Union) or NATO could have interposed themselves, at that time at relatively little cost.

It is, of course, very difficult when you are on the outside and do not have access to all the information. But

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1 the truth of the Balkan war is that once they get started, the
2 passions are so deep and have such a long historic root that
3 if you do not nip them at the beginning, they become
4 unmanageable.

5 My feeling at the time, without having studied the
6 subject, was that we could have done it. And I had a
7 conversation in those days with the then British Ambassador.
8 And he has permitted me to talk about it, and we both agree
9 ~~among each other~~ that that was the time in which we should
10 have done something. acted.

11 Senator Ashcroft: On another topic, since we are sort of
12 trying to look down the road, Boris Yeltsin has indicated that
13 organized crime constitutes a major threat to Russia's
14 strategic interests.

15 There seems to be a serious problem in Central and South
16 America. Obviously we have had our challenges in the United
17 States. As it relates to the foreign policy, are there
18 strategies that we could pursue that you would want to
19 recommend to us?

20 Dr. Kissinger: Senator, I recognize the problem. I have
21 no brilliant solutions to it. In many South American
22 countries it is clear that the drug people have much larger
23 resources than the police and, well, even in the government.

24 At one point the drug people in Medellin offered to pay
25 off the Columbian national debt --

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1 Senator Ashcroft: I wonder if they would --

2 Dr. Kissinger: -- for immunity.

3 Senator Ashcroft: -- want to help us.

4 [Laughter.]

5 Dr. Kissinger: So this is a scale of resources, and they
6 have communications and other things. On the other hand, I
7 have noticed during this year that there has been a crackdown
8 in Columbia in which the pressures that came from here and
9 partly from this committee apparently <u>currently</u> played a
10 helpful role.

11 Frankly, this is such a new phenomenon of the
12 internationalization of these criminal activities, I do not
13 have any really original ideas on how to deal with it.

14 Senator Ashcroft: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

15 Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

16 The Chairman: Mr. Secretary, this has been a very
17 helpful and interesting morning. On behalf of the committee,
18 of course, I thank you for coming. I thank you for agreeing
19 to come again at some mutually agreeable time.

20 If there be no further business to come before the
21 committee, we stand in recess.

21 [Whereupon, at 11:57 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

21

23

24

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Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee:

Thank you for the opportunity of appearing before you to discuss the direction of post-Cold War American foreign policy. It is surely one of the most difficult international challenges in our history, less dangerous than the Cold War had been but more complicated; less ominous than the world we encountered at the end of the Second World War, but more intricate. For the task before us is nothing less than to distill a sense of direction from a world in which almost all key elements are changing simultaneously.

That challenge has not yet been mastered. Too many Americans are under the illusion that their foreign policy tasks are already accomplished and seem tempted to turn their back on the world beyond our shores. A variety of factors--absence of a philosophical consensus, an uncertain Executive Branch, divisions between the Executive Branch and the Congress, Congressional macromanagement of foreign policy--threaten to marginalize American foreign policy. NATO is drifting; Western Hemisphere policy is marking time, torn between constructive pronouncements and operational lassitudes; in Asia, we are confronting the major powers, China and Japan, simultaneously, while relations with China are on a collision course. Around the world, more and more decisions are taken which the United States does not shape and which therefore do not take basic American interests adequately into account. Gradually, a pattern of international politics could creep into being that makes us increasingly uncomfortable, both in terms of our values and of our economic self-interest.

This of course is far from inevitable. The United States remains the world's most powerful nation and the strongest economy. The values which we profess continue to animate the quest for liberty in all parts of the globe. We retain the capability to shape a constructive world order. But to realize our potential requires a coherent foreign policy which engages a bipartisan consensus over an extended period of time similar to what sustained us through to victory in the Cold War.

## The New International Environment

The United States faces an unprecedented international situation on the basis of historical interpretations which

2

are in fact unique. Populated almost exclusively by immigrants, ours is the only country that has never experienced a powerful neighbor along its borders, and therefore has never had to face the security issues confronted by less favored nations. The Americans' perception of foreign policy was always one of nearly limitless choice and, above all, of having the ability to participate or to withdraw from international engagements at will. Every American initiative of the postwar period was presented to the American public as having a terminal date, after which America could again withdraw, allowing the postulated underlying harmonious pattern of the world to reassert itself.

Much of America's foreign policy has traditionally been presented in alternately psychiatric and theological terms: either as a means by which relations among nations could be conducted as they might be if they were relations among individuals, or when that did not seem possible, as a crusade to destroy or, even better, to convert antagonists to the American perception of international affairs. In that sense, the Cold War and victory in the Cold War were a culmination of America's perception of the special mission of international affairs.

How many historical examples, if any, can be recalled where a nation's leaders stated goals that, some forty years later, were practically all achieved? That is the position in which America finds itself at the end of the Cold War. But what Americans have not sufficiently understood is that foreign policy knows no plateaus; even the greatest achievement--perhaps especially the greatest achievement--leads to a decline if it is not the building block of a new advance.

For the first time in its history, America will be obliged to conduct a global foreign policy in the absence of an overwhelming ideological or strategic enemy, and in a world from which it can neither withdraw nor dominate. Thus, the classic maxim of American foreign policy--the invocation of an overwhelming crisis transmuted into large-scale enterprises--does not apply.

Paradoxically this occurs while the United States is the only remaining superpower. But military power by itself represents a simplistic assessment of the emerging international reality. For the issues susceptible to solution by military action are in decline. The kind of power in which the United States excels is less and less

3

relevant to most foreseeable international crises. On the
other hand, economics and technology are becoming much more
crucial. Even a cursory glance at the condition of the
dollar makes it clear that the relative economic position of
the United States is not what it was even ten years ago.

The current world contains six or seven major global
players whose ability to affect nonmilitary decisions is
essentially comparable. In such an international order,
there are only two roads to stability: one is hegemony based
on a country's dominance; the other is equilibrium, which is
another way of describing the notorious balance of power.
The trouble is that the American body politic tends to
reject both approaches. Hegemony will prove physically
draining; the American public seems determined to reject the
role of global policeman which hegemony implies, and the
course runs counter to the moral convictions of the American
people. But balance of power has been historically rejected
by the American political and intellectual communities as a
source of endless tensions--though at crucial periods, such
as in deciding to enter the two world wars to preserve the
global balance of power, Americans have been prepared to
overcome their prejudice. Still, a call to rely on the
national interest is considered by many a revolutionary, if
not a reactionary, proposition. And even when an attempt is
made to apply the concept, the national interest continues
to be defined in sweeping, ideological terms.

Yet the reality is that the emerging world order will
have to be based on some concept of equilibrium, at least
some concept of balance among its various regions. In
practice, this requires a balancing of dissatisfactions. It
is impossible for every participant in an international
system to be perfectly satisfied with every aspect and at
all times; that happy condition has never been achieved by
humanity. Still, it may be possible for the major players
to be sufficiently satisfied that they do not seek to
overthrow the international system by violence, terrorism,
economic warfare, or other methods so well elaborated in our
century.

But while post-Cold War foreign policy reflects some
traditional patterns, there are important differences as
well. For one thing, modern economics has changed the
nature of incentives. Historically, nations could effect
changes in the balance only by conquest. In our day,
technology permits quantum changes in a society's power by
changes entirely within its own territory. No conceivable
conquest could augment a nation's power like the acquisition

4

of nuclear weapons or the mastering of modern information
technology. Thus the paradox: nuclear proliferation is a
permanent temptation and a permanent danger while, at the
same time, the cost of war, at least among major powers, has
risen to near prohibitive levels.

Then, too, the elements of national strength are no
longer homogeneous. Many economic powerhouses--especially
in Asia and the Middle East--are politically fragile.
Communications are instantaneous, and economies are global.
Every day a trillion dollars moves in world financial
markets, only 5 percent of which is generated by commercial
transactions. Global well-being is becoming both
interconnected and precarious: a bank clerk in Singapore
managed to create $27 billion in derivatives in three days
and bring down a major international bank. But political
loyalties remain imprisoned in the nation state. And with
the breakup of old empires, conflicts have even shriveled to
the ethnic level where their intensity magnifies almost in
proportion as their global relevance is shrinking. Such
dichotomies complicate the evaluation and, even more, the
operation of any conceivable balance of power under modern
conditions.

Not just the United States but every major nation finds
itself in a transitional stage. The traditional European
nation state lacks the scale to deal with the entire
spectrum of contemporary problems. Russia is living within
borders it has not known since Peter the Great. China is
emerging as a world power for the first time in several
centuries while its leadership is changing. Japan is
reversing a pattern of political withdrawal.

How is American foreign policy to be defined in such a
period? Theoretically, the United States could pursue a
pure interest policy in the manner of Britain throughout
most of the 19th century: a posture of "splendid isolation,"
maintaining good relations wherever possible but throwing
its weight to the side that confers certain advantages at a
specific moment (which, in the British case, was generally
the weaker side). This would be a latter-day version of the
European balance-of-power diplomacy.

There are, however, huge, probably insurmountable,
obstacles to such a strategy. The first is that, whereas
Britain conducted its policy primarily in Europe, we would
have to conduct it globally. Secondly, Britain had a
leadership group that had trained itself in the conduct of
public policy. America has neither such a leadership group

5

nor any similar tradition of hard-headed, purely interest-oriented policy. Third, when communications are instantaneous, economics global, and politics democratic, it is probably not possible to conduct the same kind of cold-blooded policy in every part of the world simultaneously. Fourth, international stability is increasingly affected by splinter groups with no interest in the global equilibrium at all, usually ethnic groupings which, in fact, are using the major powers' desire for global order to achieve their own parochial objectives.

For the United States to practice its version of "splendid isolation" on a global basis under these circumstances would exhaust us physically and psychologically. A nation founded by people who have traditionally believed in the universal applicability of their values cannot simply abandon the Wilsonianism that had dominated 20th century American foreign policy.

Finding our way through this maze would be difficult enough were Americans at one in assessing the international situation. We are, however, divided, especially along generational lines. The generation that won the Cold War had its seminal experience in the Second World War and its immediate aftermath. They believed in a constructive American role and in the beneficent role of American power. The generation whose seminal experience was the Vietnam War holds a quite different view. They regard the Vietnam War not only as a terrible mistake but as an indictment of American power in general. Just as many who used the outcome of America's role in World War I as rationale for the nonintervention policy of the 1920s and 1930s, current American policy debates--whether in the Balkans or the Caribbean, in Africa or Asia--can best be understood in the context of a generation that views the world through a lens largely provided by a local and unsuccessful conflict. They do so by abdicating a foreign policy role by fleeing into either extreme multilateralism or extreme nationalism.

That difference in perspective is sharpened by one of the fundamental transformations of human consciousness through which our period is living: the change of the process of learning from books to pictures and from reading to viewing which roughly marks the borderline between the generations I have described. To learn from books, one requires concepts that relate seemingly disparate events to each other; pictures, on the other hand, teach by impressions which emphasize the mood of a moment. All this foreshortens the policy perspective and makes it more

6

vulnerable to fluctuating sentiments and transitory occurrences.

All these factors have shaped the argument between the advocates of a national interest-based philosophy and the so-called multilateralists. The first point of view states that America should base its foreign policy on a clear perception of the national interest, evoking some of the resistances I have sketched earlier. Most of us who embrace this proposition do not interpret the national interest in the extreme version described above. We would argue that the national interest, properly understood, has to encompass the relevance of our values to other societies; indeed, that forming an international consensus was part of America's interest. But we would also insist that objectives essential for American security or American values should be pursued alone, if necessary. While we would prefer some international support, in the extreme, we would be prepared to act alone.

The opposing point of view considers the American role in the Cold War to have been presumptuous, excessive, and even potentially evil, and seeks to discipline American power by reining it in through international institutions. Though the proponents of this view now present themselves as internationalists, they generally derive America's international role on a multilateral consensus.

Emphasis on multilateral diplomacy was one of President Clinton's campaign themes; Undersecretary of State Peter Tarnoff, in May 1993, insisted that America was losing the capacity to act alone while UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright has described Administration policy as "assertive multilateralism." The implication of such statements is that the national interest is on the whole defined by the attainable global consensus.

The trouble is that excessive reliance on multilateral diplomacy is proving starkly at variance with the realities of ethnic conflict, rampant nationalism and the emergence of multiple centers of power sketched earlier. In this fragmented world, excessive multilateralism leads either to abdication (as in Bosnia) or to sacrifices not tolerated by the American public because they are not perceived to reflect basic US interests (as in Somalia).

To be sure, only extreme and unrealistic nationalistic isolationism could categorize the national interest and international consensus as polar opposites. In the real

7

[u]

world, the difference is one of nuance: whether to start
with the national interest and exercise American leadership
to shape multilateral views; or whether the definition of
the national interest should be made dependent on the
emergence of a multilateral consensus. Yet on this very
nuance depends the possibility of a dynamic American foreign
policy.

Let me now apply these principles to two foreign policy
areas: Europe and Asia. There are many other policy areas
deserving of your attention, among them the Western
Hemisphere, nuclear proliferation or the Middle East. Given
the limitations of time, I shall deal with these areas on
another occasion as it is in Europe and Asia that our
foreign policy seems to me in deepest trouble.

## US European Policy

For over a generation, the Atlantic Alliance has been
the bipartisan bedrock of American foreign policy, uniting
the oldest functioning democracies with genuinely
pluralistic systems and economies based on the market. In
the end, the nations of the Atlantic area need each other in
their own self-interest. Without America, Europe turns into
a peninsula at the tip of Eurasia, unable to find
equilibrium much less unity and at risk of gradually
subsiding into a role similar to that of ancient Greece in
relation to Rome--the only outstanding question being
whether America or Russia will play the role of Rome.
Without Europe, America will become an island off the shores
of Eurasia, condemned to a kind of pure balance-of-power
politics difficult to reconcile with its national genius.
Without America, Europe's role will shrink. Without Europe,
America's path will be precarious and lonely; after all, we
fought two world wars to prevent the domination of Europe by
potentially hostile powers.

A major American role in Europe is a prerequisite for
European coherence. Without it, the European Union would
founder on the fear of German domination; France would see
reinsurance in a Russian option; historic European
coalitions would form, compounding their traditional
tenuousness with irrelevance; Germany would be tempted into
a nationalist role, Russia into revisionism.

An American presence in Europe provides a measure of
equilibrium. It gives France assurance against German
hegemony and Germany a security anchor against Russian

[c]

8

pressure as well as protection against excessive European
nationalism.

Europe by itself cannot handle the two most dangerous
Russian contingencies: resurgence of nationalism or
implosion. A Russia facing a divided Europe would find the
temptation to fill the vacuum irresistible. Even Russia has
much to gain from an American presence, which is one of the
best guarantees against the reemergence of historical
European temptations.

There are new challenges as well. While technically a
subject outside NATO competence, Muslim fundamentalism, were
it to dominate North Africa, would pose a grave challenge to
Western security. Nor is it necessary to define every
threat in detail to seek to preserve the Atlantic system of
regular consultation and an infrastructure of military
forces, logistics systems and experience in crisis
management which provides a vital, perhaps indispensable,
resource in a period of transition.

But the importance of close relations with Europe goes
beyond the traditional catalogue of threats. Though I
believe the time has come for America to develop a concept
of the national interest and apply it in a balance-of-power
context, I believe it equally necessary to limit this kind
of foreign policy to regions where no alternative exists and
to stress the areas where a more cooperative--even
Wilsonian--approach based on common values is feasible.

The two regions where moral consensus can undergird
cooperative relationships are the Western Hemisphere and the
North Atlantic area. In both, the key countries have, to
all practical purposes, forsworn the use of force in their
relations with each other. In each, institutions already
exist capable of serving as building blocks of a cooperative
world order: NAFTA and Mercosur in the Western Hemisphere,
NATO and the European Union in the Atlantic region. But
while the Administration has put forward an imaginative
vision for the Western Hemisphere, it has failed to do the
equivalent for the North Atlantic area, in part because it
has never resolved its own ambivalence between relying on
traditional alliances and its preference for
multilateralism.

This is why the key issue has been fudged: how to
define the Europe to which America should relate itself--
especially over the issue of NATO expansion--and what should
be Russia's relationship to that Europe. But unless America

9

assumes a real leadership role, the nations bordering the North Atlantic will gradually drift apart; the two sides of the Atlantic will grow more conscious of their rivalries than of their common purposes.

With respect to NATO expansion, the Administration has been reluctant and ambivalent, torn between the alliance policy which it inherited and the multilateralism which it prefers. It is aware of the German distaste for having the border of NATO on the eastern border of Germany and of the pressures of the Visegrad countries (Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) to join NATO. But it really is not comfortable with traditional alliances; indeed, some of its policymakers seem to believe that NATO may have contributed to causing the Cold War rather than to ending it. They would like to reverse what they consider the key error of the Cold War which, in their view, was the exclusion of Russia from Europe. They seek to build Europe from east to west based on Russia, rather than from west to east and based on the nations bordering the North Atlantic.

This explains the Administration's reluctance to expand NATO. President Clinton put forward as an alternative the so-called Partnership for Peace which, in his view, is not about security but about reconciliation: to "use our military power to do something never before done in the history of the nation state on the European Continent: to unify truly free and independent nations of their own free will in a Europe that is truly free together rather than have some new and different divisions of Europe..."

To use military power to unite nations of their own free will would, until our time, have been considered a contradiction in terms--especially when the area envisaged is vast, covering most of the Northern Hemisphere: the Atlantic Alliance, the former satellite orbit, the successor republics of the Soviet Union, the European neutrals and, of course, Russia itself. In any event, such a grouping is an altogether different animal from the Atlantic Alliance as heretofore conceived; it is in many respects contradictory to it.

NATO was designed for security; its purpose was to resist a definable danger. The Partnership is designed not for defense but for reassurance. The Partnership's joint military planning is an end in itself and assumes no specific peril; it is undertaken bilaterally between NATO and each partner. Yet what is the common threat or purpose that unites, say, Uzbekistan and Spain? The Atlantic

10

Alliance assumed that its threats came from outside the treaty area, while the Partnership seeks to avoid threats within its area by affirmations of good intentions. No wonder that the Partnership is based on the proposition that the extension of NATO to Eastern Europe is "provocative" and "divisive."

If present trends continue, NATO policy will become increasingly contradictory. Despite ritualistic assertions to the contrary, the Partnership for Peace creates two categories of frontier in Europe: those that are guaranteed are not threatened, and those that are threatened are not guaranteed. The result is a gray area in Eastern and Central Europe that the nations affected find severely demoralizing.

The nations of Central and Eastern Europe are joining the Partnership for Peace because they see it as a steppingstone into NATO. Russia is joining to drain NATO of content, as is evidenced by various Russian proposals amounting to a veto over NATO decisions. Thus, when America's leaders imply to Poland that NATO membership is just around the corner and to Russia that it can participate in any security arrangement open to its former satellites (in other words, that it may be able to join NATO eventually), confusion (and worse) is inevitable when the promissory notes fall due. In any event, the prospect of Russia's eventual membership in NATO removes NATO as a safety net against what Russia's neighbors fear most. NATO was designed to defend its members against threats from outside the NATO area, not against threats from other NATO members.

The Partnership for Peace runs the risk of diluting what is left of the Atlantic Alliance into a vague multilateralism. When Russia is as eligible for NATO membership as Poland, what is left of any common purpose? If Uzbekistan is eligible, why not India? If everybody between Vladivostok and Vancouver is eligible--if everybody is allied with everybody--why even have an Atlantic Alliance? Either NATO has in fact become vestigial or, alternatively, Asia will see the new grouping as ranging the white races against the peoples of the Far East. Or, more likely, we will get the worst of all worlds by trying (or pretending) to include Russia in NATO: an ineffective NATO that nevertheless gives Asians the sense that we are trying to organize Eurasia against them.

[x]

11

In recent months, the Administration seems to have recognized the impossibility of maintaining its original position. It announced first that the subject of expansion should be studied. It has more recently advocated expansion but avoided a timetable which is the only basis on which serious planning can begin. It is not clear, at least to me, whether the Administration is seeking to navigate between domestic advocates of NATO expansion and Russian opposition by embracing the concept of expansion while avoiding a timetable, thus keeping open all options and deferring the actual decision into the indefinite future.

If that is the case, NATO will continue to languish. Until the question of NATO membership is settled, the revitalization of the core Atlantic Alliance will mark time. So long as NATO and the Partnership are merged organizationally, it will prove very difficult to define common objectives for the core Alliance. Twenty-two nations have already applied for membership in the Partnership; scores are eligible. Each nation is supposed to come up with its own program of bilateral cooperation with NATO. No one familiar with how NATO operates can believe that, as now constituted, the Alliance bureaucracy can plan individual Partnership programs and simultaneously generate a creative adaptation of the Alliance itself to the new circumstances. Gresham's Law will apply: the bad currency will drive out the useful one.

A realistic approach to Russia policy would recognize that integrating Russia into the international system has two components that must be kept in balance: influencing Russian attitudes and affecting Russian calculations.

The Administration's attempts to return Russia to the international community are laudable. I agree with Secretary Christopher's statement that "helping democracy prevail in Russia remains the wisest--and least expensive--investment that we can make in American security." I strongly support the Administration's program of economic assistance to Moscow.

Russia should indeed be made welcome in institutions that foster economic, cultural and political cooperation with the West. But the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe would be a far better home for this than a Partnership for Peace that invents nonexistent military missions.

12

The tendency to treat Russian leaders as if they were
fragile novices easily flustered by exposure to the
realities of international politics is an invitation to
disillusionment and misunderstanding. These are tough men
who have survived the brutal school of Communist and Russian
politics; they are quite capable of comprehending a policy
based on mutual respect for each other's national interest
and strict reciprocity. In fact, they are likely to
understand such a calculus better than appeals to an
abstract and distant utopianism.

Perhaps the most serious misapprehension has been that
a Russian government that declares itself reformist would
automatically abandon traditional foreign policy goals. For
the incentives of the most well-meaning Russian government
are quite different from most American expectations.
Nationalism is on the rise inside Russia, and there is a
great temptation to ease the pain of transition to market
economics by appealing to that basic instinct.

At the moment, Russian armies are in Moldova, Georgia,
Azerbaijan, and Tajikistan and participate in some of the
local civil wars with a strategy that seems designed to make
the new republics--all of them members of the United
Nations--rue their independence and return to the womb of
imperial Russia. The foreign minister of Russia has
repeatedly put forward a scheme for a Russian monopoly on
peacekeeping in the "near abroad," indistinguishable from an
attempt to reestablish Moscow's domination. By its silence
and its repeated invocation of an American-Russian
partnership, the United States has come close to acquiescing
in these actions.

A moderate Russian foreign policy will be impeded, not
helped, by turning a blind eye to the reappearance of
historic Russian imperial pretensions. Russia's effort at
reform cannot exempt it from accepted principles of
conducting international relations. It is ambiguity about
dividing lines, not their existence, and ambivalence about
Western reactions, not their certainty, that tempt
militarists and nationalists alike. Reform will be
strengthened if moderates are put in a position of being
able to highlight the dangers of a nationalistic Russian
policy.

Russia and the United States have parallel interests in
Central Asia, in nonproliferation, and in stability in the
Middle East. All these subjects should be the focus of
intensive consultations at all levels, including the summit.

[cc]

13

Finally, Russia and America share a mutual interest in a stable Europe and Central Europe. This can be achieved best by America's presence in Europe, which is based on NATO. Stability in Europe requires reaffirming the centrality of NATO rather than diluting it in an abstract multilateralism.

This leads to the following conclusions:

* The stagnation of the Atlantic Alliance requires opening a dialogue on fundamentals: American vacillations complicate the ability to restore confidence.

* The structure of American-European relations needs to be modified. With the military threat receding and the risk of political crises growing, the political role of the Atlantic Alliance should be given greater emphasis.

* The most sensitive immediate issue is NATO expansion, which the Administration put before recent NATO ministerial meetings. But it must take care lest, in seeking to please every constituency and respond to every pressure, it winds up in the same dead end as Bosnia. The current policy of carrying water on both shoulders, of hinting at expansion to Western and Central Europe while trying to placate Russia with prospects of a protracted delay--is likely to accelerate the disintegration of Western unity without reassuring Russia. NATO expansion requires a decision, not a study.

* Having been approved by the NATO Council, joined by Russia and a host of other Central and East European countries, the Partnership for Peace is now a fact of life. But it is not too late to prevent the Partnership from submerging the Atlantic Alliance by separating its organization from that of NATO.

Nevertheless, security can no longer be the principal unifying bond of the Atlantic nations because, fortunately, there no longer exists a unifying threat. Common purposes, not common fears, must provide the cohesion in the new era in which economic and social issues will dominate.

One such initiative that would give a new impetus to North Atlantic relations would be a North Atlantic Free Trade Area for manufactured goods and services, with negotiations on agriculture to follow. Such a grouping would accelerate the movement toward the principle of free trade to which the members of the World Trade Organization have committed themselves. In the meantime, it would foster

14

cooperation among the nations of the North Atlantic.
Conditions are propitious. Labor standards and wage scales
on the two sides of the Atlantic as well as environmental
concerns are comparable. Prime Minister John Major of Great
Britain and Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel of Germany have
expressed their interest in such a project.

In time, NAFTA and the North Atlantic Free Trade Area
could be merged, and new consultative machinery could be
created in the political and social fields between the
Western Hemisphere and the European Union. As Russia's
economy develops and its policy becomes more national,
associate membership for it in such a free trade area would
be a distinct possibility--much more so than in NATO.

In short, America should return to what it has
traditionally done best: putting forward its vision for how
the nations of the North Atlantic can create a new world
worthy of their democratic principles.

## Asian Policy

The United States has a vital interest in peace and
stability in Asia and in constructive relations with the
nations bordering the Pacific. When American policymakers
think about how to achieve these objectives, they generally
focus on Asia's economic dynamism. Asia is indeed the
fastest growing region in the world, containing half the
world's GNP and population. It has been growing at an
average rate of 7.5 percent a year, with China alone
increasing its GNP by more than 10 percent a year, every
year since 1980. Asia accounts for 40 percent of America's
overseas trade (a third more than the European Union), and
the percentage is still rising.

But American interests in Asia go far beyond the
economic realm. There is a fundamental political interest
to prevent the nations of Asia from forming a bloc inimical
to America's purposes either because of the emergence of a
hegemonical power or by ill-judged American policies and
pressures. We therefore overlook at our peril that the
political situation in almost every Asian country is
extremely fragile. The majority of them find themselves in
a state of transition. These transformations are producing
in each country a tension between nationalism and
internationalism and, at a minimum, will modify existing
alliances including the Japanese-American alliance.

[x]

15

Japan is in the process of transforming its political institutions and probably the orientation of its postwar foreign policy. The electoral system is changing with as yet unpredictable consequences. When the process is completed, after one or two more elections, it is likely that a new dominant political party will appear. But its character will change from what has heretofore been familiar. The postwar generation of Japanese leaders lived with the trauma of defeat, sheltered its foreign policy under the American security treaty, and emphasized the economic rebuilding of the shattered country. But the period of political self-abnegation is clearly ending. Japan's policy is bound to become more national and, above all, more political.

China may already have completed most of the transition from Deng Xiaoping to the next generation of leaders. Nevertheless, the process of consolidation has its own logic. Above all, the extraordinary rate of growth of the Chinese economy is bound to bring with it political adaptation to an industrial information age.

Indonesia's President has just started what many believe to be his last term--a prospect his advanced age makes all the more probable.

Korea is torn between its desire for unification and its fear of isolation.

India is shifting towards a greater readiness to embrace market economics.

All these changes are with variations taking place in all the countries of Asia and will produce certain common features:

- tension between the internationalism required by global economies and the nationalism which many of the leaders believe is needed for political cohesion.

- pressure on existing alliances and alignments, especially as there is a perception in every Asian nation that American policy is itself in a state of flux and for their leaders increasingly unpredictable.

As I have said, Japanese policy will take on an increasingly national character. The shock of defeat in World War II has worn off; the end of the Cold War has destroyed the conviction that American and Japanese

[cc]

16

perceptions of their national interest are inevitably parallel. The rise of China, the unification of Korea, the possible shift of the center of gravity of Russian policy towards Siberia--all have a different significance for Japan than they have for the United States. The size of the Japanese defense budget--already the third largest in the world--reflects this reality, and a Japanese nuclear program in the next century cannot be excluded. Japanese and American political purposes are far from irreconcilable. But there is a need for an explicit effort to bring them into closer harmony with each other--a task inadequately addressed until now.

Korea--the last remaining divided country--will be beset by the challenge of unification. It faces a North Korean strategy to delegitimize it and to settle problems directly with the United States, as was the case with the negotiations over the North Korean nuclear program. South Korean unease with this process, though publicly understated, clashes to a quite considerable extent with the Administration's apparent conviction that North Korea's rigidity is caused by its exclusion from the world economy and that the United States has a special responsibility (or obligation) to soften their sense of isolation by increasing its own contacts with Pyongyang. South Korea too is aware that China and even more Japan do not share, to put it mildly, its own aspiration toward unification, thereby magnifying its own nationalism. And if China and the United States continue or increase their confrontation, the situation in Korea could turn ugly.

The nations of Southeast Asia can be divided into those which are above all afraid of China and those which are more concerned about Vietnamese nationalism. The first group cultivates close relations with Vietnam, the latter emphasizes friendship with Beijing.

As India emerges into great power status, it can be expected to return to the policies of the British raj which were after all conceived by the Indian civil service under the viceroys located first in Calcutta and, toward the end of British rule, in New Delhi. It will seek an influential, if not dominant, role, in the arc extending from Aden to Singapore. This will produce clashing perceptions with China in Tibet and Burma, and with Indonesia, Vietnam and, to a lesser extent, China in Southeast Asia.

This fragmentary survey underlines two realities which American policy has so far neglected. The first concerns

[c]

17

the basic difference between the nations of Europe and those of Asia. During the Cold War period, Europe developed regional structures for economic and political cooperation for which there is no equivalent in Asia. More recently, the European nations have organized themselves into the European Union; whatever their differences, military conflict between them is inconceivable; strategic considerations are a negligible aspect of the conduct of their relations with each other.

The opposite is true in Asia. Ritualistic protestations at APEC meetings of the existence of a Pacific Community notwithstanding, the nations of Asia have never organized themselves into an Asian Economic Community or an Asian Defense Pact. Too, they lack the common historical experience shared by most European nations represented by Rome, Charlemagne, the Church. As a result, the nations of Asia perceive each other as strategic rivals and potential threats (excluding the relations of the ASEAN nations-- except perhaps Vietnam--to each other). They are at least as conscious of their mutual rivalries as they are of any potential common purposes.

This state of affairs has caused the United States to play the principal stabilizing role in Asia since the Second World War. Unlike in Europe, the United States has done so through a series of bilateral security and political arrangements which, if discarded, could collapse the whole structure.

Even in the post-Cold War world, the United States is in an excellent position to advance American long-term interests. Because the conflicts of the Asian nations with each other are more deep-seated than any disagreements they might have with the United States, in a well-conceived policy, the United States bargaining position is excellent--an advantage reinforced by the fact that America provides the principal market for all Asian nations.

Yet in recent years, the United States has not only failed to draw benefits from this state of affairs, it has permitted itself to become embroiled in conflicts with many of the key Asian nations. Some of these conflicts are generated by ad hoc domestic pressures on the Congress unrelated to a long-term strategy; others reflect an Administration tendency to equate foreign policy with domestic politics. It ought to be a settled maxim of American foreign policy not to take on the principal Asian nations simultaneously. The opposite has been the case.

18

During calendar year 1995, the United States has been in confrontation with Japan and China simultaneously and, in recent days, has managed to throw in a glancing blow at Thailand as well.

In recent years, relations with Japan have been characterized by seemingly endless confrontations. On many of these, the American position has had much merit. It is surely a legitimate objective of the US Government to gain greater access to the Japanese market. But we have lost track of the equally important interest in developing political state-to-state relations as one element of Asian stability.

Foreign policy always involves trade-offs. Giving excessive weight to the economic side has produced a confrontational style that accentuates the impression of potentially clashing national interests. This may come back to haunt us as Japan increasingly articulates a national foreign policy. Moreover, many of the economic "victories" are more apparent than real, and more public relations coups than substantive achievement. In the process, there has been next to no scope for the elaboration of parallel political strategies on which close American-Japanese relations will increasingly depend. We may pay for this short-term approach in the years to come.

But by far the most worrisome policy area concerns Sino-American relations. For over twenty years after 1949, China and the US had no relations at all. Between 1971 and 1989, they achieved something approaching a strategic partnership. Since then, relations have steadily declined as a result first of the impact of Tiananmen Square and Congressional pressures and, more recently, a cycle of action and reaction over Taiwan. Having just returned from Beijing, I want to say in the most solemn way that our two countries are again on a collision course. I want to warn against the dangerous argument that good relations with China were important in the Cold War but have lost their significance with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Stability in Asia is most likely if both China and the United States participate in shaping Asia's future. Conflict with China would tempt both countries to organize the rest of Asia against the other, encouraging virulent nationalism. While an overbearing Chinese foreign policy could at some point in the future drive American foreign policy to such an expedient, nothing in the contemporary

19

world calls for a policy of isolating China; the weight of
our interests is in precisely the opposite direction.

For the foreseeable future, America and China have a
parallel interest in equilibrium in Asia. Both countries
have their reasons for opposing the domination of Asia by a
single power. China wants the United States to help balance
its relationships with powerful neighbors--Japan, Russia and
India--at least until it is strong enough to do so on its
own. America needs Chinese cooperation on these matters as
well as on a peaceful evolution of the future of Taiwan, on
nuclear proliferation, and on the transfer of weapons
technology.

These are the sorts of issues which should be key
elements of the Sino-American dialogue at least for the next
decade. If they moved to the center of Sino-American
relationships, they would facilitate dealing with human
rights and proliferation issues by providing a strategic
context. In the course of their country's long history,
China's leaders have frequently taken account of the special
needs of their counterparts provided such an action also
served Chinese interests. What they will not accept, or
will accept only under extreme duress, is the implication
that America bestows its cooperation as a special favor
without reciprocity to be withdrawn at will.

But this is precisely what has been happening. At the
moment, Sino-American relations are in a free fall. The
immediate cause has been the granting of a US visa to
President Lee Teng-hui of Taiwan--largely for domestic
political reasons. But the issue would not have taken on
such dimension had the visit not been the culmination of a
series of US actions perceived in Beijing as unilateral and
high-handed abrogations of existing agreements over recent
years. Similarly, Chinese actions taken for international
reasons, such as the detention of Harry Wu, are interpreted
in Washington as deliberate challenges to US human rights
concerns.

The central issues now looming before the two
governments are proliferation, human rights and,
overshadowing everything else, Taiwan. A general review of
post-Cold War foreign policy is not the occasion to go into
detail on each of these issues. I will take another
occasion to elaborate my views.

But I need to explain why the issue of Taiwan is so
fraught with risks. To many Americans, the immediate issue

[c]

20

appears as the sovereign American right to determine the entry of visitors. Beijing perceives that American actions--starting with the sale of F-16s to Taiwan by President Bush and accelerated in the present Administration--amount to a "two China" policy which six American presidents have formally forsworn over a period of 23 years. To Beijing, it is seen as a challenge to the territorial integrity of China, a challenge to which it is particularly sensitive because the alienation of Taiwan was an early stage in the process by which Imperial Japan sought to dominate China. As China proved in the Korean War, in the expulsion of Soviet advisors in 1959, and in its reaction to the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia, it tends to react neuralgically to any perceived slight to its perceived sovereign rights. If China perceives that Washington is promoting a two-China solution, it would probably prefer to resist by force, even at the risk of a setback than to be perceived as acquiescing. Beijing and Washington seem now on a collision course which, if continued, will prove extremely costly to both sides and threatening to international stability.

The danger of the existing roller coaster towards confrontation to both China and the United States and to stability and progress in Asia is incalculable. A containment policy toward China under present circumstances is a pipe dream. Unlike the containment policy of a generation ago, it will have no takers except perhaps Vietnam, turning the history of the last two decades on its head. It will force every nation of Asia to take sides with uncertain outcomes and with a guaranteed enhancement of Asian nationalism. America's ability to influence Japan will dramatically decline. Korea may turn into a tenderbox. Nations with hegemonical aspirations--or even territorial claims--will sense new opportunities.

China will try to organize the nations of Asia into a grouping to oppose America--a process whose beginning can already be noticed. The European nations will eagerly step into the economic vacuum--a process whose outlines are also already discernible. The economic damage to America will be as horrendous as the political one.

To be sure, China may suffer even greater economic damage, and it is even more vulnerable to unleashed Asian nationalism. But this will prove little consolation in the midst of the decline in restraints that collapsing confidence in American leadership will produce. I am aware that there is a school of thought holding that China will in the end recoil or perhaps even collapse as the Soviet Union

21

did. I do not believe in the analogy, and I warn against playing chicken with the fate of nations. I believe there must be a moratorium on further unilateral steps in Washington by both the Congress and the Executive Branch and an end to invective from Beijing and pressures from Taiwan to permit a calm reassessment.

On the verge of producing a reversal of the policies which have benefitted both countries and international stability, all sides should step back from the brink before it is too late and irreparable damage is done. Specifically:

- The Administration should at last define what it understands by a "one China" policy, proclaimed by six presidents for 23 years and three formal agreements, as the prelude to resuming a political dialogue with Beijing.

- The Congress should stop ad hoc measures and seek a joint course with the Administration.

- Taiwan should think again before pressing America on a course that, in the end, may isolate Taiwan totally and force it to take the blame for consequences some of its backers apparently do not foresee.

- Beijing should end its invective and take seriously issues about which Americans feel deeply, such as the fate of Harry Wu, as a prelude to resumed negotiations with Washington.

## Conclusion

I have attempted to describe the overall condition of American foreign policy, as well as two major problem areas. I want to conclude with an appeal for bipartisanship. The national interest of the United States does not change every four years; foreign leaders judge our country by its insight and its constancy.

We have as a nation failed this test in recent years. The Administration has not given a conceptual lead and has too often subordinated foreign policy to domestic politics.

The Congress has sought to micromanage foreign policy-a task for which it is not organized.

2

⊕

3

4

5

6

7

US European Policy

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Russia and the United States have parallel interests in
Central Asia, in nonproliferation, and in stability in the
Middle East. All these subjects should be the focus of
intensive consultations at all levels, including the summit.
Finally, Russia and America share a mutual interest in a
stable Europe and Central Europe. This can be achieved best
by America's presence in Europe, which is based on NATO.

JUL-12-1995 11:07

97%

P.03

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TO KAI

P004

33

* The stagnation of the Atlantic Alliance requires opening a dialogue on fundamentals; American vacillations complicate the ability to restore confidence.

TII -12-1995 11:07

97/

P.04

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P005

34

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35

Trade Area for manufactured goods and services, with negotiations on agriculture to follow. Such a grouping would accelerate the movement toward the principle of free trade to which the members of the World Trade Organization have committed themselves. In the meantime, it would foster cooperation among the nations of the North Atlantic. Conditions are propitious. Labor standards and wage scales on the two sides of the Atlantic as well as environmental concerns are comparable. Prime Minister John Major of Great Britain and Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel of Germany have expressed their interest in such a project.

JUL-12-1995 11:08

97%

P.06

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P007

36

## Asian Policy

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37
year since 1980. Asia accounts for 40 percent of America's overseas trade (a third more than the European Union), and the percentage is still rising.

JUL-12-1995 11:08

97%

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P009

38

JUL-12-1995 11:09

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39

-- tension between the internationalism required by
global economies and the nationalism which many of the
leaders believe is needed for political cohesion.

-- pressure on existing alliances and alignments,
especially as there is a perception in every Asian nation

JUL-12-1995 11:09

97%

P.10

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TO KAI

P011

40

As I have said, Japanese policy will take on an
increasingly national character. The shock of defeat in
World War II has worn off; the end of the Cold War has
destroyed the conviction that American and Japanese
perceptions of their national interest are inevitably
parallel. The rise of China, the unification of Korea, the
possible shift of the center of gravity of Russian policy
towards Siberia--all have a different significance for Japan
than they have for the United States. The size of the
Japanese defense budget--already the third largest in the
world--reflects this reality, and a Japanese nuclear program
in the next century cannot be excluded. Japanese and
American political purposes are far from irreconcilable.
But there is a need for an explicit effort to bring them

JUL-12-1995 11:09

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P.11

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This fragmentary survey underlines two realities which American policy has so far neglected. The first concerns the basic difference between the nations of Europe and those of Asia. During the Cold War period, Europe developed regional structures for economic and political cooperation for which there is no equivalent in Asia. More recently, the European nations have organized themselves into the European Union; whatever their differences, military conflict between them is inconceivable; strategic considerations are a negligible aspect of the conduct of their relations with each other.

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[4]

45

policy, the United States bargaining position is excellent-
-an advantage reinforced by the fact that America provides
the principal market for all Asian nations.

Yet in recent years, the United States has not only
failed to draw benefits from this state of affairs, it has
permitted itself to become embroiled in conflicts with many
of the key Asian nations. Some of these conflicts are
generated by ad hoc domestic pressures on the Congress
unrelated to a long-term strategy; others reflect an
Administration tendency to equate foreign policy with
domestic politics. It ought to be a settled maxim of
American foreign policy not to take on the principal Asian
nations simultaneously. The opposite has been the case.
During calendar year 1995, the United States has been in
confrontation with Japan and China simultaneously and, in
recent days, has managed to throw in a glancing blow at
Thailand as well.

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47

But by far the most worrisome policy area concerns Sino-American relations. For over twenty years after 1949, China and the US had no relations at all. Between 1971 and 1989, they achieved something approaching a strategic partnership. Since then, relations have steadily declined as a result, first of the impact of Tiananmen Square and Congressional pressures and, more recently, a cycle of action and reaction over Taiwan. Having just returned from Beijing, I want to say in the most solemn way that our two countries are again on a collision course. I want to warn against the dangerous argument that good relations with China were important in the Cold War but have lost their significance with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

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Conflict with China would tempt both countries to organize
the rest of Asia against the other, encouraging virulent
nationalism. While an overbearing Chinese foreign policy
could at some point in the future drive American foreign
policy to such an expedient, nothing in the contemporary
world calls for a policy of isolating China; the weight of
our interests is in precisely the opposite direction.

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President Lee Teng-hui of Taiwan--largely for domestic political reasons. But the issue would not have taken on such dimension had the visit not been the culmination of a series of US actions perceived in Beijing as unilateral and high-handed abrogations of existing agreements over recent years. Similarly, Chinese actions taken for internal reasons, such as the detention of Harry Wu, are interpreted in Washington as deliberate challenges to US human rights concerns.

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51

appears as the sovereign American right to determine the
entry of visitors. Beijing perceives that American actions-
-starting with the sale of F-16s to Taiwan by President Bush
and accelerated in the present Administration--amount to a
"two China" policy which six American presidents have
formally forsworn over a period of 23 years. To Beijing, it
is seen as a challenge to the territorial integrity of
China, a challenge to which it is particularly sensitive
because the alienation of Taiwan was an early stage in the
process by which Imperial Japan sought to dominate China. As
China proved in the Korean War, in the expulsion of Soviet
advisors in 1959, and in its reaction to the Vietnamese
occupation of Cambodia, it tends to react neuralgically to
any perceived slight to its perceived sovereign rights. If
China perceives that Washington is promoting a two-China
solution, it would probably prefer to resist by force, even
at the risk of a setback, than to be perceived as

07-12-95 01:00PM

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52

The danger of the existing roller coaster towards confrontation to both China and the United States and to stability and progress in Asia is incalculable. A containment policy toward China under present circumstances is a pipe dream. Unlike the containment policy of a generation ago, it will have no takers except perhaps Vietnam, turning the history of the last two decades on its head. It will force every nation of Asia to take sides with uncertain outcomes and with a guaranteed enhancement of Asian nationalism. America's ability to influence Japan will dramatically decline. Korea may turn into a tinderbox. Nations with hegemonical aspirations--or even territorial claims--will sense new opportunities.

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To be sure, China may suffer even greater economic damage, and it is even more vulnerable to unleashed Asian nationalism. But this will prove little consolation in the midst of the decline in restraints that collapsing confidence in American leadership will produce. I am aware that there is a school of thought holding that China will in the end recoil or perhaps even collapse as the Soviet Union did. I do not believe in the analogy, and I warn against playing chicken with the fate of nations. I believe there must be a moratorium on further unilateral steps in Washington by both the Congress and the Executive Branch and

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Specifically:

-- The Administration should at last define what it
understands by the "one China" policy, proclaimed by six
presidents for 23 years and three formal agreements, as the
prelude to resuming a political dialogue with Beijing.

-- The Congress should stop ad hoc measures and seek a
joint course with the Administration.

-- Taiwan should think again before pressing America
on a course that, in the end, may isolate Taiwan totally and
force it to take the blame for consequences some of its
backers apparently do not foresee.

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-- Beijing should end its invective and take seriously issues about which Americans feel deeply, such as the fate of Harry Wu, as a prelude to resumed negotiations with Washington.

## Conclusion

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The Congress has sought to micromanage foreign policy-
-a task for which it is not organized.

At the end of the Second World War, it took America
four years to develop the policies which saw us through the
Cold War. Some of the current controversies are therefore
the mechanism by which a free people shapes the vision of
its future. Let us dedicate ourselves to accomplishing our
task with the same success that shaped the postwar world.
The American people deserve no less.

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