54

promoting a 2-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

55

may turn into a tinderbox. 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 did. I do not

56

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
pursued by six presidents which have contributed to peace and
stability in Asia, all parties 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 the "one China" policy, proclaimed by six
Presidents for 23 years and three formal agreements, as the
prelude to resuming the political dialogue with Beijing.

57

-- The Congress should stop ad hoc measures and work for 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

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee:

I have attempted to describe the overall condition of American foreign policy, as well as two major problem areas.

58

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.

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.

47

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. A general review
of American foreign policy does not afford the opportunity
to go into the details of every issue. But it makes it
necessary to stress in the most insistent manner why US-

48

China relations are important and why they must not be jeopardized lightly, if indeed at all.

Stability in Asia is most likely if both China and the United States participate in shaping Asia's future.

Conflict with China would tempt each side 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.

For the next decade at least, 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

49

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.

50

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. 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. That Chinese actions are being interpreted as provocative in Washington only accentuates the problem.

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.

51

But I need to explain why the issue of Taiwan is so fraught with risks. To many Americans, the immediate issue 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 to which six American presidents have formally forsworn over a period of 25 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 and in its reaction to the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia, it tends to react neuralgically to any perceived slight to its perceived sovereign rights. Engaging in actions that China views as an insult to its dignity can therefore be a costly

M

52

enterprise, even if the process also does severe damage to
China: in 1950--a year after ending the exhausting civil
war--China entered the Korean War against the unchallenged
American superpower in possession of a nuclear monopoly; in
1959, it expelled all Russian advisors at the cost of
setting back its economic progress for a decade and in the
absence of diplomatic relations with America; in 1979, it
"taught Vietnam a lesson," even though its army was inferior
in technology and suffered heavy casualties. If China
perceives that Taiwan is being alienated, it would prefer to
fight 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.

53

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.

54

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
an end to invective from Beijing and pressures from Taiwan
to permit a calm reassessment.

55

Specifically:

- The Administration should at last define what it means by a "one China" policy as the prelude to resuming the political dialogue with Washington.

- The Congress should stop ad hoc measures and work for a consensus with the Administration.

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

56

## Conclusion

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

49

the most solemn way that our two countries are again on a
collision course. A general review of American foreign
policy does not afford the opportunity to go into the details of
every issue. But it makes it necessary to stress in the most
insistent manner why US-China relations are important and
why they must not be jeopardized lightly, if indeed at all.

50

For the next decade at least, 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.

51

52

But I need to explain why the issue of Taiwan is so fraught with risks. To many Americans, the immediate issue 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 to which six American presidents have formally forsworn over a period of 25 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

53

proved in the Korean War and in its reaction to the
Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia, it tends to react
neuralgically to any perceived slight to its perceived sovereign
rights. Engaging in actions that China views as an insult to
its dignity can therefore be a costly enterprise, even if the
process also does severe damage to China: in 1950--a year
after ending the exhausting civil war--China entered the
Korean War against the unchallenged American superpower in
possession of a nuclear monopoly; in 1959, it expelled all
Russian advisors at the cost of setting back its economic
progress for a decade and in the absence of diplomatic
relations with America; in 1979, it "taught Vietnam a lesson,"
even though its army was inferior in technology and suffered
heavy casualties. If China perceives that Taiwan is being
alienated, it would prefer to fight even at the risk of a setback
than to be perceived as acquiescing. Beijing and Washington

54

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.

55

56

Specifically:

-- The Administration should at last define what it means
by a "one China" policy as the prelude to resuming the
political dialogue with Washington.

-- The Congress should stop ad hoc measures and work
for a consensus with the Administration.

-- Taiwan should think again before pressing America
on a course that, in the end, may isolate it totally and force it

57

Conclusion

58

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100 Henry A. Kissinger

liturgy. Yet if there is to be a European-American relationship in the twenty-first century that goes beyond occasional consultation and a very active commerce, it must be based on something more than a recollection of times past. It must address the common interests of the two worlds, interests that were not extinguished when the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

The United States faces an unprecedented situation where historical roots need always to be recalled. It is the only major country in the world whose history can be precisely dated, populated almost exclusively by immigrants, it has never had a powerful neighbor along its borders, and has never had to face the problems of security confronted by less favored nations. The Americans' perception of their 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 underlying harmonious pattern to reassert itself.

This explains why almost all of America's foreign policy has traditionally been presented in alternately psychiatric and theoretical terms: either as a means by which relations among nations could be conducted as they might be if they were relations between individuals, and, 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 the American approach to international affairs.

How many historical incidents, if any, can be recalled of a nation's leaders and allies stating goals that, some forty years later, were practically all achieved? That is the position in which we now find ourselves. And it is occurring at the precise moment when, in the United States, the now dominant leadership groups have altogether different geographic origins from those that shaped the postwar period. A comparable "generation gap," caused by other factors, exists in Europe, and both need to be understood in thinking about the future relations of the two sides of the Atlantic.

The foreign policy of the United States during the Cold War was formed largely by the so-called Northeastern "establishment."

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102 Henry A. Kissinger

overwhelming ideological challenge in the face of which foreign policy can be transmuted into large-scale enterprises to remedy the immediate crisis—also do not apply.

It is said that the United States is the only superpower left. That is a simplistic description of the situation. It may be the only military superpower left, but 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 relevant to most foreseeable international crises. On the other hand, in economics, even in technology, the world is becoming much more evenly balanced. 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 a few years ago. Indeed, we are now living in a world composed of six or seven major global players.

In such an international order, the United States faces the more or less traditional foreign policy problem of global players of operationally more or less equal strength. There are only two roads to stability: one is hegemony, the other is equilibrium. Hegemony may not be possible and if any case runs counter to the convictions and public morale of the American people; equilibrium, or the balance of power, is a concept passionately rejected by the American intellectual community as contributing to endless tensions—an attitude Americans have fortunately been able to transcend through much of their history. To say in America that we must define a national interest is considered a revolutionary, if not a reactionary, proposition. And even if one could formulate it as an acceptable formula, the national interest is almost always defined in sweeping, ideological terms. Still, the future of the world will have to be based on some concept of equilibrium or some balance among its various regions.

It is impossible for every participant in an international system to be always perfectly satisfied; that happy condition has never been achieved by humanity. Still, it may be possible for the major regions of the world to be not so dissatisfied that they seek to overthrow the international system by violence, terrorism, economic warfare, or certain other methods so well elaborated in our century, which have proved so destructive. This is the first requirement of the moment, transcending in importance any of the individual crises that so preoccupy the mass media and that occasion-

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We Live in an Age of Transition 103

ally prove useful to politicians who wish to demonstrate their resolve.

In the conduct of policy, I would define the American interest both negatively and positively. Negatively, it is against the American interest that any major region of the world, including either Europe or Asia—and surely both together—should be dominated by a country or group of countries that can then organize themselves to pursue objectives inimical to the United States. Second, the United States must accept to participate in a world community where global concerns, whether in respect to economics, communications, or technology, are acknowledged.

Theoretically, the United States could pursue policy on a global basis in the manner employed by Britain in Europe throughout most of the nineteenth century: adopting a posture of "splendid isolation," maintaining good relations with everybody 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 balance-of-power diplomacy. While that is theoretically possible, I do not believe the United States has the philosophy, the personnel, or the resources to do this on consistently a global basis, or even to elaborate it as a philosophy. Therefore, the more realistic approach to America's foreign policy problem in the post-Cold War world is to recognize that there are fundamental differences in America's relations with Europe, with individual countries in the Old World, and with those that exist in Asia.

Within Europe, the conflicts, rivalries, and historic memories have not wholly evaporated. Still, a strategic conflict among the European powers is out of the question. Whatever the differences in approach among the core countries of the European Union and the so-called rim countries, they are not likely to lead to military conflict.

Such is not the case in Asia. We can talk—as we do periodically—about a Pacific Community, but anybody studying the relations of Japan, China, Korea, the Asian part of Russia, and even India must acknowledge that, at this stage, their relations are more like those that existed between nineteenth-century European states than between twentieth-century European states. And, if we move to the area to the south of Europe, the growth of fundamentalism

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If this were an academic lecture, I would say that the United States has two broad choices. It could, theoretically, behave like Britain did in the 19th century, when the British foreign policy was one of "splendid isolation". Britain stood apart from Europe, which was the center of world affairs, but threw its weight in whichever direction best suited British interests — which, broadly speaking, was onto the weaker side in any European struggle. Britain did not want Europe to unite under the tutelage of a single country — regardless of its views about individual leaders — much as Winston Churchill said in the thirties when he was accused of being pro-French and anti-German: "If circumstances were reversed, I would be pro-German and anti-French. I'm not pursuing a personal policy but a fundamental principle that has preserved the liberties of the European States." Now that is a theoretical policy for the United States: we could look at the world and say, "We will back whoever is most likely to oppose the country which threatens to dominate Eurasia, because we have a national interest not to have Eurasia dominated by a hostile power."

There are, however, huge obstacles to this. The first is that, whereas Britain needed to conduct this policy in Europe, we would have to conduct it on a global scale. Secondly, Britain had a leadership group that had trained itself in the conduct of public policy. America does not have such a leadership group or such a tradition. Third, when communications are instantaneous, economics global, and politics democratic, it is probably not possible to conduct the same kind of cold-blooded, national-interest-oriented policy in every part of the world simultaneously, as such a policy would require.

We are facing a difficulty intellectually — all of us — in that technology, economics, and communications have become global, while political loyalties are still national, even more and more subnational. In a world of such global connections there are ever more splinter groups with no interest in the global equilibrium at all; which, in fact, are using the major countries' desire for global order to achieve objectives that are of concern primarily to them. For the United States to practice "splendid isolation" under these circumstances would exhaust us physically and psychologically. And it is above all incompatible with American values.

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We Live in an Age of Transition 101

Present-day leadership and foreign policy direction are drawn mostly from the West, the Southwest, or the South. America's relations with Europe are much less organic today than they were during the generation of Acheson, McCloy, and the other fathers of Cold War policy. This does not mean that the current group is hostile to internationalism; only that it is less identified with recent European history. The previous establishment drew from appeasement the lesson that the democracies around the Atlantic had to be unified; there is no comparable imperative for the new American leaders.

The present generation, with no personal experience of World War II, having never established the kinds of European ties that bound an earlier generation to the Old World, accepts the Vietnam War as its Epiphany. Very few of those who now hold major positions in Washington saw combat in Vietnam; a whole generation of university students stayed aloof, either openly resisting the war, or taking what they thought to be legitimate exemptions from compulsory military service. The Vietnam War, seen by them and by many others as a terrible mistake—the defining experience of their generation—guides much of their thinking about war and peace. Whether their experience in respect to Vietnam has inoculated them for reflecting objectively about the new post-Cold War world, as many who deplored America's role in World War I used its injustices and cruelties as an excuse for the brands of nonintervention common in the 1920s and 1930s, is a proposition rarely considered. American policy, whether in the Balkans or the Caribbean, in Africa or Asia, can only be understood in the context of a generation that views the contemporary world through a lens largely provided by a local and unsuccessful conflict, Vietnam.

As a result, America is presently going through what I believe to be only the beginning of a national debate. And I really have no right to speak here of an American point of view because the American point of view is still being formed. The seminal debates have not yet taken place. For the first time in its history, America must conduct a global foreign policy without an overwhelming ideological enemy, without a clear-cut strategic plan, and in a world that it can neither dominate nor withdraw from. Thus, the classic maxims of American foreign policy—the invocation of an

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Nixon Center After Victory

Keynote Luncheon Address - Kissinger

to essentially unrepeatable impressions; analysis is often replaced
by sentiment and reflection by instantaneous perception which
cannot, as I said, be repeated. That is the world into which we
began to move at the beginning of the Nixon period and which in
many ways is culminating in its debates in this period, a good
example of which are some of the discussions that took place here.

Some of the controversies about what should motivate American foreign policy -- which were underlying yesterday's discussions -- have their origin in two contradictory propositions. The first proposition is that America should base its foreign policy on a clear perception of the national interest, to which most American academics react with horror because they interpret interest as something selfish that is beyond America and therefore appeals to its least objective aspects.

Those of us who embrace this proposition -- and I believe I speak here for President Nixon as well -- would believe that the national interest, properly understood, has to encompass the relationship of a society which always claimed its values had universal validity to other societies; and that forming an international consensus was part of America's mission. But they would also say this: if American leaders are convinced that something is essential for American security or American values, they should pursue that objective alone, if necessary, and form consensus as they go along. While they would prefer not to do it this way, in the extreme, they would be prepared to do it.

The opposing point of view, which now claims to be internationalist, really started out as an isolationist philosophy. It considers the American role in the Cold War to have been presumptuous, excessive, and even potentially evil. This group has sought to discipline American power by reining it in through international institutions, adopting the view that America could act internationally only as a result of multilateral consensus.

That is what the debate is all about at this moment and the congressional backlash -- whatever one's view about the specific measures that have been adopted to express it -- is, in effect, saying that, in the end, America cannot derive its motivation from international consensus but must develop its own specific purposes and then try to shape an international consensus.

Until fairly recently, this was not considered a philosophical problem. There is no dispute about the role of the U.N. in Korea or in the Gulf. In both of those cases, the United States made it quite clear that it would act unilaterally if necessary according to its perception of what the global security required. It invited the participation of others, which is the prudent thing to do, and

Federal News Service
(202)347-1400

4

The Washington Post
Friday, May 12, 1995

Henry Kissinger

For U.S. Leadership, a Moment Missed

President Clinton's attendance at the V-E Day celebration in Moscow aroused ambivalent emotions. No doubt Soviet sacrifices contributed decisively to victory over the Nazi dictatorship. But it is also true that the Nazi-Soviet Pact had made the war possible; that Stalin had divided Eastern Europe with Hitler; that he then supplied the Nazi war machine until the Soviet Union was attacked; and that upon victory, he occupied Eastern Europe, launching four decades of Cold War.

The Yeltsin-C Clinton summit, moreover, took
place at a moment of extraordinary uncertainty
in U.S.-Russian relations. There are disagree-
ments over Chechnya, nuclear sales to Iran and
NATO expansion—all issues deserving high-
level attention. The question remains whether
V-E Day celebrations, with the presence of so
many other heads of state, was the most auspi-
cious occasion for addressing these controver-
sies. Even more fundamentally, the visit to Mos-
cow reveals the lack of balance in the priorities
of the administration's foreign policy.

If any European city deserved to be singled
out by America for an Allied remembrance, it
was London. Capital of the nation that steadfastly
resisted Nazi aggression from the beginning, it
became America's most reliable ally, both in the
war and in the Cold War that followed. No better
occasion is likely to arise to celebrate Great Brit-
ain's unique contribution to the cause of freedom
or to express America's appreciation for two
generations of steadfast cooperation.

That the moment was not seized—even as a
stop on the way to Moscow—was no mere
oversight. One of the curious attributes of
the leaders who grew up during the Vietnam protest
movements is that their obsession with tran-
scending the categories of the Cold War impris-
ons them in the debates of the Cold War period.
One of their articles of faith seems to be that the
Communist (or Soviet) menace was overdrawn,
indeed that the Cold War could have been most
effectively ended—if it need ever have been
waged—by reassuring Russia rather than con-
fronting it.

In that spirit, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, the principal architect of Washington's European policy, argued in Time magazine as late as 1990 that the doves had been right all along and that the Soviet Union had never been the threat it had been cracked up to be. Western policy had been at best irrelevant when it had not actually delayed the Soviet collapse. Thus Cold War attitudes and institutions, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, needed to change their character.

This indeed has been the rationale behind the
administration's Partnership for Peace proposal,
which, whatever the rhetoric to the contrary,
transforms NATO from an alliance into an instru-
ment of collective security akin to the United
Nations, thereby depriving North Atlantic rela-
tions of their special character.

While these attitudes are not uniformly held
throughout the administration, they are suffi-
ciently powerful to explain the solicitude shown
to Yeltsin's personality and Moscow's sensitivi-
ties compared with the tone deafness exhibited
toward West European—and especially Brit-
ish—concerns. Washington-Moscow relations
are treated as the keystone of America's Europe-
an, if not global, policy.

A good illustration is the administration's atti-
tude toward NATO expansion. Senior offi-
cials have claimed that the issue is when to ex-
pand NATO, not whether to. They have also in-
dicated that they would go along with Yeltsin's
request that NATO expansion proceed slowly
and that Russia's eventual membership in NATO
not be foreclosed.

Briefings prior to Clinton's Moscow trip put
the "when" at five years and left open the possi-
bility of a "reformed" Russia joining the alliance.
The long hiatus guarantees that the issue of
NATO expansion will continue to fester, while
Moscow will be encouraged to pressure the
NATO allies and the nations of Eastern Europe.
At the same time, there is not one of Russia's
western neighbors seeking to join NATO that
would not regard offering Russia membership as
the wolf's being asked to guard the lambs.

So long as the cohesion of the Atlantic Alliance
is not given anything like the priority the admin-
istration attaches to placating Moscow, Russia
will find ways to avoid the key challenge present-
ed to it by the collapse of its empire: whether it
can be satisfied to live as a normal state within

Overly solicitous of
Moscow, tone-deaf to
Western Europe.

non-imperial borders—even though it comprises
11 time zones and huge resources. A country of
such size and possessing some 20,000 nuclear
weapons should not need additional territory to
feel secure. A Russia that abandons imperial pre-
tensions would soon deflect concerns from the
field of security to political and economic cooper-
ation, for example the European security confer-
ence or the G-7.

From this point of view, how much better it
would have been for Clinton to stop in London—
even on the way to Moscow—and use the occa-
sion of its V-E Day celebration to outline a new
vision of the North Atlantic relationship, some-
thing his administration has so far refused to do.

A new initiative is needed above all to restore
a sense of direction to American foreign policy. It
has become axiomatic that the next phase of in-
ternational relations will be shaped by a limited
number of power centers: the United States, Eu-
rope, Russia, Japan, China and possibly India and
Brazil. Theoretically it is possible for the United
States to conduct its policy purely on the basis of
national interest, not unlike what Great Britain in
the 19th century termed the policy of "splendid
isolation." This would require a careful assess-
ment of rewards and penalties for each region of
the world and a balancing of them to produce ac-
tions most compatible with America's national in-
terest. In the abstract, such a policy should be
tenable because, on the face of it, all the major
actors enumerated above have greater conflicts
with each other than with the United States.

But in fact the United States lacks a tradition
of a foreign policy based entirely on the na-
tional interest. There is little bureaucratic skill in
so cold-bloodedly equilibrating rewards and pen-
alties on a global basis. A country founded by
peoples who had turned their backs on inherited
tradition and who believed in the universal appli-
cation of the values of their society cannot simply
abandon the Wilsonianism that has dominated
20th-century American foreign policy.

Though I believe the time has come for Ameri-
ca to develop a concept of the national interest
and apply it in a balance-of-power context, this
will work only if we reduce the regions for this
kind of foreign policy as much as possible and ex-
tend the areas where a more cooperative—even
Wilsonian—approach is feasible.

Russia is as yet too inchoate and unformed to
function as the anchor of American foreign poli-
cy. The two regions where moral consensus can
undergird cooperative relationships are the
Western Hemisphere and the North Atlantic ar-

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ea. 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 Merchosur in the Western Hemisphere, NATO and the European Union in the Atlantic region. But while the Clinton administration has put forward an imaginative vision for the Western Hemisphere, it has failed to do so for the North Atlantic area, in part because of the intellectual legacy described earlier.

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

I strongly favor NATO expansion. 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—of which the Moscow summit is a prime example—is likely to accelerate the disintegration of Western unity without reassuring Russia. NATO expansion requires a decision, not a study.

Nevertheless, by itself it will not create a new sense of Atlantic community. Security can no longer be the principal unifying bond of the Atlantic nations because, fortunately, there is 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 are becoming dominant.

The time has come to put into effect a North Atlantic Free Trade Area for manufactured goods and services, with negotiations regarding 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. In a world with massive growth in Asia, with ethnic conflicts and religious fundamentalism, the Western democracies cannot afford their historical proclivities to national or regional rivalries.

The conditions are propitious. Labor standards and wage scales on the two sides of the Atlantic and 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. A major American initiative would be received as was Gen. George Marshall's speech for European recovery and would almost surely produce a creative response.

In time, NAFTA and the North Atlantic Free Trade Area could be merged, and new consultative machinery in the political and social fields could emerge 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.

America should return as quickly as possible to what it has traditionally done best: to put forward its vision for how the nations of the North Atlantic can create a new world worthy of their democratic principles.

©1995, Los Angeles Times Syndicate

The Washington Post

Tuesday, August 16, 1994

Henry Kissinger

# It's an Alliance, Not a Relic

7

> "The administration's Atlantic policy is creating two categories of frontier in Europe: those that are guaranteed are not threatened, and those that are threatened are not guaranteed."

By far the most worrisome aspect of American foreign policy—far more troubling than Bosnia and Haiti—is the progressive erosion of the Atlantic Alliance, for half a century the keystone of American diplomacy. It goes without saying that the disintegration of the Soviet empire, the retreat of Soviet armies and the unification of Germany require major changes in NATO structure and purpose. What is taking place is not adaptation, however, so much as decline into an empty shell and with nary a public discussion.

On three trips to Europe this year, President Clinton discussed the Alliance as if it were a relic of the Cold War. He defined its contemporary significance almost exclusively in relation to the 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 more enlightened 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. Such a grouping is an altogether different animal from NATO and the European Union as heretofore conceived; it is in many respects contradictory to it.

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.

The Partnership for Peace is a hybrid of the Wilsonian concept of collective security and of the Henry Wallace ideology of the 1940s, both of which rejects the very concept of alliance. NATO was designed for security; its purpose was to resist a definable danger. The Partnership is designed not for defense but for reassurance. The joint military planning of the Partnership is an end in itself; it assumes no specific peril; it is undertaken bilaterally between NATO and each partner. But what common threat or purpose

unites, say, Uzbekistan and Spain? The Atlantic Alliance assumed that its threats came from outside the treaty area, while the Partnership seeks to pacify threats within its area by affirmations of good intentions. This is what President Clinton describes as the truly new aspect of the Partnership: "for the first time all nation states really do respect the territorial integrity of one another."

The Wallace ideology of the 1940s resonates in the convictions of Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott—the architect of the Partnership—who, as late as 1990, wrote that the Cold War had been unnecessary and that a more egalitarian Western policy would have ended it decades earlier. No wonder that the Partnership is based on the proposition that the extension of NATO to Eastern Europe is “provocative” and “disvisive.” The Partnership is in fact a replay of the Locarno Treaty of the 1920s, when Great Britain, eager to avoid an alliance with France, settled for a German recognition of the French frontier.

The quest for novelty for its own sake makes it impossible to learn from history. Through most of its history, Russia did not so much challenge the borders of its neighbors as it sought to dominate these neighbors by pressure or blackmail. Recognizing borders, as the Soviet Union did at the European Security Conference of 1975, was not considered incompatible with maintaining the satellite orbit or insisting on the Brezhnev Doctrine claiming a right of intervention if Communist rule was threatened. Nor did Russia ever consider itself an exclusively European power. Bordering Asia and the Middle East, it was never prepared to submit its relationship with its neighbors—including those of Europe—to international decisions. And it has not interpreted membership in the Partnership to involve that obligation, as shown by its conduct in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Tajikistan and, most recently, Chechnya.

The breakup of the historical empire is perceived by many Russians as humiliating; the temptation to use an assertive nationalism for fostering unity is reappearing in a democratic Russia with respect to the "near abroad."

The truly novel aspect of Clinton's European policy is that it seeks to build the Atlantic area from East to West, reversing the architecture of the postwar period. But making Russia the hinge of America's Atlantic policy places an exorbitant strain on one of the most brittle nations. And it lures the United States into assigning a role to Germany which its leaders have not requested, which its circumstances do not favor and which unnecessarily wounds Great Britain and France. During his visit to Berlin, President Clinton called on Germany to assume a special responsibility for Eastern Europe and Russia in particular; he called the American relationship with Germany "unique" and "singular" because Germany had a more "immediate and tangible concern" with relations with Russia "even than our other friends in Europe."

Even to hint at a solitary and preeminent role for a country whose disasters have been caused by its inability to manage a purely national policy in the center of the continent is as disquieting to Germany's neighbors as it is to the architects of German postwar policy.

I have advocated the closest relationship with Germany since the founding of the Federal Republic in 1949. I have admired the constancy with which all of Germany's major parties have continued the legacy of the great Chancellor Konrad Adenauer—to seek a major German role not on a purely national basis but as an integral part of the Atlantic Alliance and of the European Union. And it is not without significance that, in responding to President Clinton, Chancellor Helmut Kohl—perhaps the wisest leader in today's Europe—specifically invoked that

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AN IMPRUDENT PLAN
FOR REFORMING NATO

K

NEW YORK POST, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1993

COMMENTARY

HENRY KISSINGER

IN the most significant foreign policy initiative of the Clinton Administration, Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Secretary of Defense Les Aspin have put forward ideas for the reform of NATO. These would revolutionize what has been aptly called the most successful alliance in history. They would also unfortunately risk dissolving it in a vague new concept called Partnership for Peace.

NATO, as it has operated for four decades, is clearly in transition. An alliance formed when Soviet armies bestrode Central Europe cannot have the same significance after Soviet power has receded to the Russian border, the satellite states have collapsed and the Soviet Union itself has disintegrated. At the same time, the Atlantic Alliance remains America's sole institutional link to Europe, and the most natural way for the United States to influence the political evolution of Europe. It also possesses a nearly irreplaceable command and logistics system.

Threats to peace have become far less immediate and overwhelming; they have also become more frequent and festering as nationalist, fundamentalist and ethnic conflicts have become more widespread. Despite the discouraging experience of Bosnia, the challenge before the Alliance is to translate common interests into common policies and to create an Atlantic zone of stability in a turbulent world.

Ironically, the American initiative was elicited by countries applying for membership in NATO, and which like it as it stands: Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. The timing of the request was premature, before the Administration had had an opportunity to

develop its Atlantic policy. And consideration of it could have been postponed for some time without much damage.

Instead, the Administration used the occasion to merge its Atlantic and East European policies by putting forward the Partnership for Peace. Affirming its rejection of "blocs" and its desire to erase Europe's dividing lines, it invited all the components of the former Soviet Empire — the 15 republics that have declared their independence, together with Russia and the former East European satellite states — to form a Partnership for Peace. This is to have four missions: peacekeeping, crisis management, search-and-rescue missions and disaster relief.

When Secretary Aspin was asked whether what was meant was "peacekeeping" (preserving an established agreement) or "peace-making" (imposing a settlement), he replied that it could be either because "the words were not drawn with care." All partners are to be eligible for NATO membership on a "non-discriminatory" and "inclusive" basis for which, however, Christopher has rejected any specific timetable.

Refused a security guarantee and offered the placebo of nebulous joint missions, which have neither been defined nor respond to their concerns, Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary must have noted the absence of any distinction between Russia, the cause of their anxiety, and themselves, the victims of Russian aggression.

The leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary clearly prefer Russian President Boris Yeltsin to any alternative but obviously are not prepared to base their nation's security on this preference. They seek some reassurance, if not vis-a-vis the incumbent Russian government, then against an unforeseeable though by no means unimaginably different government in the future.

When Czech President Vaclav Havel, a left-leaning intellectual of anti-military instincts, and Polish President Lech Walesa, whose country has suffered more than any other and would be the first victim of unnecessary confrontations with Russia, insist on NATO membership, what do they miss that Washington understands?

According to Aspin, Eastern Europe will be given a "sense of stability" and some "comfort" by its right to consult within the Partnership for Peace. The opposite is the case. The Partnership would force the concerned countries to consult with the very country that is causing their discomfort.

I agree with 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. I also accept Yeltsin as the most plausible leader of reform.

Where I draw the line is when the Administration declares every partner in the new Partnership to be eligible for membership in NATO — though it was not indicated how or by what procedure. A political process like Russia's, that has led to two attempted coups in two years, should not be given a veto over NATO membership or be declared eligible for NATO membership itself.

We have to face the implication of our own proposals. If the purpose is to avoid "blocs" and "discrimination," there will never be a good time for East European membership without Russia; and if it is made dependent on Russia, Moscow will have been given a veto or the option of watering down the existing institutions to the point of irrelevance. And if later on Eastern Europe is taken into NATO because Russia has turned out badly, the crisis would surely be exacerbated. We resisted blackmail when Russia was strong; does it make sense to permit Moscow to blackmail us now with its domestic weakness?

["The European Security Confer-
ence seems the ideal instrument\nfor enabling Russia to cooperate\nwith the other nations of the Atlan-\ntic area on political, economic and\ncultural subjects. And it could be\nexpanded for that purpose.", "But when even the Russian re-\nform leadership continues to main-\ntain armies in nearly all the suc-\ncessor states of the former Soviet\nUnion, in most cases against the\nwishes of the local authorities, and\nwhen these armies participate in\ncivil conflicts in Georgia, Moldava\nand Azerbaijan — all members of\nthe U.N. — it is surely not the mo-\nment to hold out the prospect of\nNATO membership to Russia.", "Russia is entitled to every consid-\neration for its historic security con-\ncerns. But so is Eastern Europe en-\ntitled to its equally well-founded\nfears. The Administration's reuc-\ntance to risk the emergence of a\nhostile Russian government should\nnot be pushed to the point of fulfill-\ning Russia's quest of 300 years: to\nshape the policies of its neighbors.", "The concerns of both Russia and\nEastern Europe could be met by a\nqualified NATO membership for\nPoland, the Czech Republic and\nHungary that enables them to be in\nNATO, like Spain and France,\nwithout joining the integrated mili-\ntary structure. In that scheme, no\nnon-national forces would be de-\nployed east of the Cold War demar-\ncation line. (Even though all of\nGermany is in NATO, no inte-\ngrated forces are deployed in the\nformer East Germany.) That plan\nwould turn NATO into a defensive\nguarantee without adding to its of-\nfensive capabilities. I would even\nargue that by drawing an unam-\nbiguous security line, historic Rus-\nsian temptations would be discour-\naged. This would provide the\nsoundest basis for East-West coop-\neration.", "NATO membership for Eastern\nEurope aside, there is reason for\nserious concern even with respect\nto the existing framework. German\nDefense Minister Volker Ruehe has", "expressed his discomfort with\nplacing NATO's eastern frontier\npermanently along the German/\nPolish border. He obviously would\nprefer it to be along Poland's east-\nern border. Though he was quickly\nsquelched by a government which\nseeks no quarrel with the Clinton\nAdministration in a German elec-\ntion year and which seems genu-\ninely to like the President, he ex-\npressed a valid geopolitical reality.\nThe Partnership for Peace would\ncreate a vacuum in Eastern Eu-\nrope. If things turn out badly in\nRussia, it would lead to the emer-\ngence of a no-man's-land between\nGermany and Russia, which has\ncaused so many European wars.\nAnd Poland would once again be\ndefined as a potential victim.", "The Atlantic Alliance has united nations with substantially common objectives, though at times major tactical disagreements have occurred. Nevertheless, the goals outlined for the Partnership for Peace are unlikely to be perceived in the same way in the former Soviet Union. For example, peacekeeping has a special meaning there, often indistinguishable from restoring the former Russian Empire.", "The Partnership for Peace would dilute what is left of the Atlantic Alliance into a vague multilateralism. When Gorbachev first put forward the idea of a Common European House extending from Vancouver to Vladivostok, his purpose was clearly understood to be to make the Atlantic Alliance less relevant. For Washington now to go all the way and, in effect, to equate the Atlantic Alliance with the Common European House is to signal the decline of NATO.", "When Russia is as eligible for\nNATO membership as Poland,\nwhat is left of any common pur-\npose? If Uzbekistan is eligible, why\nnot India? If everybody between\nVladivostok and Vancouver is eligi-\nble — if everybody is allied with\neverybody — why even have an At-\nlantic Alliance? What difference re-\nmains between NATO and the new\nPartnership for Peace? Either\nNATO has in fact become vestigial\nor, alternatively, Asia will see the\nnew grouping as ranging the white\nraces against the peoples of the\nFar East. Though the Administra-\ntion implies that the core NATO\ngroup of 16 will be held together, it\nhas been silent as to what their spe-\ncific functions will be other than to\nparticipate in the Partnership for\nPeace. Indeed, how can they have a\nfunction if blocs are to be avoided?", "For over 40 years, the domestic\ndebate in each country of the North\nAtlantic Alliance has been polar-\nized between the advocates of a\ncohesive alliance and proponents of\na vague multilateralism extending\neast. For 40 years, American policy\nhas supported the advocates of\ncohesion. With the Partnership for\nPeace, America is shifting its con-\nsiderable weight to the multilateral\noption and is making Russia its\nprincipal partner. This will have\nthe profoundest impact on Euro-\npean politics.", "The Partnership for Peace would accelerate the trend toward Euro- pean nationalism and, once Russia regains strength, toward European neutralism. It would align us in Western Europe with many of the forces that have opposed all the measures which brought the Atlan- tic Alliance its successes. That is a fateful step, not to be taken lightly.", "Perhaps it is impossible to accept the Atlantic Alliance to the post-Cold War world. But we owe it to a history of common effort and to the needs of a turbulent world to make the attempt. The Administration deserves credit for its efforts to re- late Russia to the mainstream of international politics. But the new East-West relationship must not begin by submerging the Atlantic Alliance in a morass of ill-defined multilateralism.", "A new international order always\ninvolves something of a high-wire\nact as the old and the new interact.\nLet us not begin it by destroying\nthe safety net.", "Henry Kissinger's analyses of\nworld events appear regularly in\nThe Post."]

CJE

International Herald Tribune

Monday, January 24, 1994

# Europe Needs a Strong NATO, Not Utopian Gimmicks

By Henry Kissinger

NEW YORK — Perhaps the most significant aspect of Bill Clinton's progression across Europe was obscured by the atmospherics. In fact, the trip ushered in an important re-evaluation of heretofore accepted premises of American foreign policy. In effect, the president's statements elevated the radical critique of Cold War policies into the operational premises of contemporary American foreign policy.

For nearly half a century, that critique had maintained that Soviet policies were as much caused by American policies as by Communist ideology; that the Soviet government was divid- ed, just like the American, between hawks and doves; that it was the task of American diploma- cy to ease Soviet fears, many of which were quite legitimate, and that an attitude of genuine coop- eration would overcome Soviet bellicosity.

As late as January 1990, these propositions were refurbished in a Time article in which Mikhail Gorbachev was anointed Man of the Decade. Its author was Strobe Talbott, recently chosen to be deputy secretary of state, who argued that the doves of 40 years of Cold War debate had been right all along and that it had not been the West's policy that brought about the Soviet collapse but the inherent weakness of the Soviet system; indeed, that the collapse might have occurred earlier had Western hard- liners not enabled the Soviet leaders to rally their people on behalf of security.

The essence of these themes was repeated by President Clinton on many occasions during his European trip. To explain why he did not favor the admission of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia into NATO, he argued in effect that such a step might be provocative.

He added: "I say to all those in Europe and the United States who would simply have us draw a new line in Europe further east that we should not foreclose the possibility of the best possible future for Europe which is a democracy everywhere, a market economy everywhere, people cooperating everywhere for mutual security."

The assumptions behind his statements challenge the intellectual foundations of NATO, the core of America's postwar foreign policy.

Whether the former victims of Soviet imperialism should join NATO is a complicated question. There are many ways to accomplish that goal, from full membership to various levels of associate membership or, indirectly, via membership in the European Union.

But the key issue is not the timing of NATO expansion. In putting forward the Partnership for Peace, the administration did not just delay East European participation, it emphatically rejected the principle despite many misleading statements to the contrary.

The Partnership invites all the successor states of the Soviet Union and all of Moscow's former East European satellites to participate with NATO in a vague, multilateral entity specializing in missions having next to nothing to do with realistic military tasks; it equates the victims of Soviet and Russian imperialism with its perpetrators and gives the same status to the Central Asian republics at the borders of Afghanistan as it gives to Poland, the victim of four partitions in which Russia participated and the route across which Russia has historically invaded Europe.

Therefore, if the Partnership for Peace is designed to propitiate Russia, it cannot also serve as a way station into NATO, especially as the Clinton administration has embraced the proposition, rejected by all its predecessors for 40 years, that NATO is a potential threat to Russia.

An official traveling with the president's party expressed the logic behind the administration's position when he stated that Eastern Europe would have to find security in placating its feared neighbor. "The most effective thing for us," he said, "is to try to protect Eastern Europe by encouraging anti-imperialist, democratic tendencies in Russia."

It is instructive to compare the current approach with that of Dean Acheson when NATO was founded. Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the secretary of state was asked whether the Soviet Union had reason to fear NATO. His reply was: "Any nation which claims that this treaty is directed against it should be reminded of the biblical admonition that 'the guilty flee where no man pursueth.'"

What does it say about Russian attitudes if the expansion of NATO is perceived to be provocative? No reasonable observer can imagine that Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary or Slovakia could ever mount a military threat against Russia, either singly or in combination. The countries of Eastern Europe are terrified, not threatening. And NATO forces, doctrine and deployment are strictly defensive.

Moreover, Russia could easily be given additional assurances, for instance, that no foreign troops would be stationed on the soil of new NATO members — assurances that already exist with respect to the former East German satellite.

The key question, however, is what the American theory means for NATO. What is to be NATO's precise role in the new dispensation?

If a security guarantee along the Polish-Russian border creates an unacceptable dividing line, why is the current eastern border of NATO any more pacifying? If Russia can veto NATO membership now when it is in need of economic support, what will it veto when it has been strengthened through reform and American economic assistance?

It is high time to take another look at the administration's Russia policy, which stakes everything on a kind of psychoanalytic social engineering. The world evoked by Mr. Clinton's reference to "democracy everywhere ... people cooperating everywhere" is decades away. In the real environment of today's ethnic conflict and internecine struggle in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, how is security and progress to be organized until that utopian world is reached?

Can it be wise to create two categories of frontier — those which NATO protects and others which are refused protection — when both frontiers face in the same direction? The practical consequence will be to bring about an unprotected no-man's-land between Germany and Russia, which has historically been the cause of all recent European conflicts.

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 Clinton administration deserves support in extending generous economic assistance to Russian reform. And Russia should be made welcome in institutions that foster economic, cultural and political cooperation with the West. The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe would be a far better home for this than a Partnership for Peace that invents common military missions, within the framework of NATO, whose essential irrelevance underlines the artificiality of the conception.

The administration's 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. In fact, they are likely to understand such a calculus better than appeals to an abstract and distant utopianism.

Russia is bound to have a special security interest in what it calls the "near abroad" — the other republics of the former Soviet Union. The test is whether the rest of the world treats this relationship as an international problem subject to accepted rules of foreign policy or as an outgrowth of unilateral Russian decision-making to be influenced, if at all, by appeals to Russian goodwill.

Perhaps the most serious misapprehension of the Partnership for Peace proposal is that a reformist Russian government would automatically abandon traditional foreign policy goals. For the incentives of the most well-meaning Russian government are quite different.

Nationalism is on the rise, and there is a great temptation to ease the pain of transition to market economics for the Russian population by appealing to that basic instinct. This is

reflected in President Boris Yeltsin's refusal to go along with NATO in punishing Serbia and in his reaction to the Partnership proposal.

Mr. Yeltsin is reported to have asked that all the successor states of the Soviet Union and all former East European satellites join it simultaneously, thereby fulfilling a decade-long Kremlin policy of diluting NATO to the point of irrelevance.

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