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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

LYJ

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

[Y]

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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. 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.

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HEARING ON U.S. NATIONAL GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

IN THE YEAR 2000 AND BEYOND

Thursday, July 13, 1995

U.S. Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations
Washington, D.C.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in Room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Thursday, July 13, 1995, Hon. Jesse Helms, chairman of the committee, presiding.

Present: Senators Helms, Lugar, Kassebaum, Brown, Coverdell, Snowe, Thompson, Thomas, Ashcroft, Pell, Feingold and Feinstein.

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1 OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JESSE HELMS, U.S. SENATOR FROM

2 NORTH CAROLINA

3 The Chairman: The meeting will come to order.

4 Good morning, Dr. Kissinger.

5 Dr. Kissinger: Good morning, sir.

6 The Chairman: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee

7 welcomes the distinguished former U.S. Secretary of State, Dr.

8 Henry Kissinger, who enjoys a 99-percent name recognition

9 among the American people. The other 1 percent are on a trip
to outer space.

11 I understand you just got back from China.

12 Dr. Kissinger: That is correct.

13 The Chairman: I want to talk to you about that.

14 I suspect Dr. Kissinger will find interesting the
characterization of him by one of the committee's dedicated
staff members, one of his admirers, who described Dr.

17 Kissinger as our flagship speaker this morning as we launch an
extensive and bipartisan consideration of what U.S. foreign
policy goals should be for the next century.

20 The decision to conduct these hearings has its genesis in
the axiom that it is difficult to discern where one is going
without some awareness of, in this case, a studied and fairly
precise understanding of where we want our foreign policy to
go and a reasonably accurate assessment of how best to get
there.

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1 So today's hearing, the first in a series, will not focus
2 on any of the crises of the moment, but to contemplate in a
3 very strategic way the goals and objectives, the challenges
4 and dilemmas that we face at this post-cold war era.

5 Now, this hearing, I reiterate for the purpose of
6 emphasis, is intended to be the first of a series during which
7 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will be briefed by
8 distinguished Americans and who are regarded as having
9 enormous foreign relations expertise. And Dr. Kissinger
10 certainly qualifies in that regard.

11 Now, then, the end of the cold war has ushered in an era
12 of unprecedented change and upheaval. The world is awash with
13 new friends and old friends reconstituted, rogue nations with
14 reasonable ambitions and divisive, ethnic and religious
15 tensions, rampant proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
16 and their attendant technologies, growth in international
17 organized crime and the collapse of traditional governmental
18 structures.

19 All of these exacerbate a growing callous disregard for
20 human life and individual liberties throughout this world we
21 are living in.

22 Now, I am persuaded that while the threats and challenges
23 to the United States may have changed, the vital strategic
24 interests of our country have not.

25 I have been concerned that we should seriously define

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1 these vital interests, and we certainly have lost sight of

2 John Winthrop's city on the hill that has in the past been a

3 beacon of hope and direction over a period of centuries.

4 It is most fitting that Dr. Henry Kissinger and the

5 subsequent distinguished senators who will appear before this

6 committee will help us rekindle that fire and illuminate our

7 vital national interest.

8 There needs to be a concentration of concern about the

9 future security of our nation and the world that we propose to

10 leave to our children and grandchildren. For example, the

11 spread of weapons of mass destruction is of great concern.

12 Can we address the proliferation and use of these.

13 weapons?

14 Other issues we must consider include: What role do

15 alliances play in our security? Where do we stand on

16 international trade and export issues and the pursuit of

17 market share?

18 What is the most effective way to address human rights

19 abuses and to promote democracy? And how should we respond to

20 the unrelenting abuses of authoritarian and communist regimes?

21 What role, if any, do international institutions, such as

22 the United Nations, play in the post-cold war era? And who

23 will prove to be the great power of the year 2025?

24 There must be no definitive answers to some of these

25 questions, but there are discernible principles that are older

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1 than American itself.

2 We will default upon our duty, I think, if we do not

3 consider these and other issues as we seek to define the

4 standards by which we measure our purpose as a nation.

5 Dr. Kissinger, we appreciate your willingness to be here

6 this morning to launch the series of studies that we

7 contemplate.

8 I turn now to the ranking member of this committee,

9 Mr. Pell.

10

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24

25

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1 STATEMENT OF HON. CLAIBORNE PELL, U.S. SENATOR FROM

2 RHODE ISLAND

3 Senator Pell: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

4 And I appreciate very much the long-range viewpoint that
5 these committee hearings will have and your adoption of this
6 long-range viewpoint.

7 Having been a member of the committee for more than 30
8 years, I wanted to recognize that Congress has grown much
9 faster than we realize.

10 And I would say that this being the 50th anniversary of
11 the founding of the United Nations that what we do today will
12 lead in what seems a short period of time, the last 50 years,
13 will be the next 50.

14 And in this regard, I am particularly interested in China
15 and the thought that in China today you have a situation where
16 in mainland China a market economy is developing.

17 At the same time that it is developing, if we can avoid
18 bloodshed, avoid war in that part of the world, the time will
19 come when mainland China will be one free market country, and
20 there will be one China.

21 The way to achieve one China is to avoid bloodshed and
22 let time, which is the greatest cure and the greatest
23 influence, play its role and bring about the objective we
24 want, a peaceful world.

25 I look forward to hearing from you very, very much

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STATEMENT OF DR. HENRY KISSINGER, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY
OF STATE

Dr. Kissinger: Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee.

First of all, Mr. Chairman, I greatly appreciate the
invitation you extended to me several months ago to open these
hearings and to undertake a sort of philosophical review of
American foreign policy.

I have written a rather lengthy statement, but in order
to permit time for the discussion, I am cutting it down as I
speak. But I will stand by the text, and I will be happy to
answer questions on any part of the statement.

The Chairman: And if the Secretary will yield, the
entire statement will be printed in the record.

Dr. Kissinger: Thank you, sir.

I might also point out I have concluded this statement
with some observations on the relationship with China, having
just been there and because of the situation that we confront.

But it should be seen in the context of our overall
foreign policy and as an illustration of overall foreign
policy, and it is not meant as an inclusive statement of all
of my views.

So let me begin now reading my statement, with your
permission.

I appreciate the opportunity of appearing before you to

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1 discuss the direction of post-cold war American foreign
2 policy.

3 It is surely one of the most difficult international
4 challenges in our history, less dangerous than the cold war
5 had been but more complicated, less ominous than the world we
6 encountered at the end of the Second World War but more
7 intricate.

8 The task before us is nothing less than to distill a
9 sense of direction from a world in which almost all key
10 elements are changing simultaneously.

11 We have true -- the United States remains the world's
12 most powerful nation and the strongest economy. The values we
13 profess continue to animate the quest for liberty in every
14 part of the globe.

15 We retain the capability to shape a constructive world
16 order. But to realize our potential requires a coherent
17 foreign policy based on a bipartisan consensus over an
18 extended period of time, similar to what sustained us through
19 victory in the cold war.

20 Let me talk now to the new international environment.
21 The United States faces an unprecedented international
22 situation on the basis of historical interpretations which are
23 in fact unique.

24 Ours is the only country that has never experienced a
25 powerful neighbor, and therefore it has never had to face the

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1 security issues confronted by less favored nations.

2 The Americans' perception of foreign policy was generally

3 one of nearly limitless choice and, above all, of having the

4 ability to withdraw from international engagements or to

5 participate in them at will.

6 Every American initiative of the postwar period has been

7 presented to the American public as having a terminal date.

8 In that sense, the cold war, and victory in the cold war, were

9 a culmination of America's perception of the special mission

10 in international affairs.

11 But what Americans have not sufficiently understood is

12 that foreign policy knows no plateaus. Even the greatest

13 achievement, perhaps especially the greatest achievement,

14 leads to a decline if it is not the building block of a new

15 advance.

16 For the first time in our history, America will be

17 obliged to conduct a global foreign policy in the absence of

18 an overwhelming ideological or strategic enemy, and in a world

19 from which we can neither withdraw nor dominate.

20 This occurs even while the United States is the only

21 remaining superpower. But the issues susceptible to solution

22 by military action are declining.

23 The kind of power in which the United States excels is

24 less and less relevant to many international crises, as we are

25 seeing in Bosnia. At the same time, economics and technology

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1 are becoming much more crucial.

2 The current world contains six or seven major global

3 players whose ability to affect nonmilitary decisions is

4 essentially comparable.

5 In such an international order, there are only two roads

6 to stability. One is hegemony based on one country's

7 dominance. The other is equilibrium, which is a way of

8 describing the balance of power so notorious in American

9 political debate.

10 The reality of the emerging world order is that it has to

11 be based on some concept of equilibrium. But while the post-

12 cold war foreign policy reflects some traditional patterns,

13 there are important differences with historical international

14 assistance as well.

15 For one thing, modern economics has changed the nature of

16 incentives. Historically, nations could effect changes in the

17 balance of power only by conquest. In our day, technology

18 permits quantum changes in a society's power by changes

19 entirely within its territory.

20 No conceivable conquest could augment a nation's power

21 like the acquisition of nuclear weapons or the mastering of

22 modern information technology. And thus we have a paradox.

23 Nuclear proliferation is a permanent temptation and a

24 permanent danger while, at the same time, the cost and the

25 risks of war, at least among major powers, has risen to nearly

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1 prohibitive levels.

2 Then, too, the elements of national strength are no

3 longer homogeneous. Many economic powerhouses, specially in

4 Asia and the Middle East, are politically fragile.

5 Communications are instantaneous and economies global.

6 Global well-being is becoming both interconnected and

7 precarious. But political loyalties remain imprisoned in the

8 national state.

9 And with the breakup of old empires, conflicts have

10 shriveled to the ethnic level where their intensity magnifies

11 almost in proportion as their global relevance is shrinking.

12 Not just the United States but every major nation finds

13 itself in a transitional stage. The traditional European

14 nation state is too small to deal with the entire spectrum of

15 contemporary problems.

16 Russia is living within borders it has not known since

17 Peter the Great. China is emerging as a world power for the

18 first time in several centuries at the moment that its

19 leadership is changing. Japan is reversing a pattern of

20 political withdrawal.

21 Theoretically, the United States could pursue a pure

22 interest policy in the manner of Britain throughout most of

23 the 19th century, what the British called a posture of

24 splendid isolation, maintaining good relations wherever

25 possible but throwing its weight to the side that confers

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certain advantages at a specific moment.

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 with respect to foreign policy nor any tradition of purely interest-oriented foreign policy.

Third, when communications are instantaneous, economics global, and politics democratic, it is 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 groups which in fact are using the major powers' desire for global order to achieve their own parochial objectives, as we are seeing these days in the remnants of Yugoslavia and in parts of the former Soviet Union.

Finally, a nation founded by people who have always believed in the universal applicability of their values cannot simply abandon their relevance and the Wilsonianism that has dominated 20th century American foreign policy.

Therefore, I conclude that we have two sets of problems.

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1. There are parts of the world, which I will discuss later,
2. primarily Asia, in which we have no choice except to conduct a
3. balance of power policy.

4. There are other parts of the world, especially the
5. Western Hemisphere and Europe, primarily Western Europe, in
6. which we are connected with people of parallel values and
7. comparable economies, where are policy should be based on
8. shared values, cooperative enterprises, and where the usual
9. maxims of balance of power are less relevant.

10. But establishing such a policy is extremely complicated
11. in present-day America because we are to some extent divided
12. along generational lines.

13. The generation that won the cold war had its seminal
14. experience in the Second World War and in its immediate
15. aftermath. They believe in a constructive American role and
16. in the beneficent application of American power.

17. The generation whose seminal experience was the Vietnam
18. War holds in many respects quite a different view. They
19. regard that war not only as a terrible mistake but as an
20. indictment of the use of power in general.

21. Just as many who used America's role in World War I as a
22. justification for the non-intervention policy of the 1920s and
23. 1930s, so many of that generation tend to abdicate a foreign
24. policy role by fleeing into either extreme multilateralism or
25. extreme nationalism.

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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
the moment.

All of this foreshortens the policy perspective and makes
it more 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.

Most of us who embrace this proposition would argue that
the national interest, properly understood, must encompass the
relevance of our values to other societies; indeed, that
forming an international consensus is part of america's
interest.

But we would also insist that objectives essential for
American security or American values should be pursued alone

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1 if necessary.

2 The opposing point of view considers the American role in

3 the cold war to have been presumptuous, excessive, and seeks

4 to discipline American power by reining it in through

5 international institutions.

6 Though the proponents of this view now present themselves

7 as internationalists, they generally derive America's

8 international role from an international consensus.

9 The trouble is that excessive reliance on multilateral
10 diplomacy is proving starkly at variance with the realities of
11 ethnic conflict, rampant nationalism and the emergence of
12 multiple centers of powers sketched earlier.

13 Excessive multilateralism leads either to abdication, as
14 in Bosnia, or to sacrifices not tolerated by the American
15 public because they are not perceived to reflect basic U.S.
16 interests, as in Somalia.

17 In the real world, the difference is one of nuance. Yet
18 on this very nuance depends the possibility of a dynamic
19 foreign policy.

20 Now let me apply these principles to two policy areas,
21 U.S.-European policy and Asian policy. I know there are many
22 issues, nonproliferation, environmental, Middle East, Western
23 Hemisphere that deserve attention.

24 But this statement is too long as it is. And I will be
25 happy to respond to questions about the submitted statement

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1 later.

2
3 generation, the Atlantic Alliance has been the bipartisan

4 bedrock of American foreign policy, uniting the oldest
5 functioning democracies with genuinely pluralistic systems and
6 economies based on the market.

7
8 Without America, Europe turns into a peninsula at the tip
of eurasia, unable to find equilibrium much less unity.

9
10 Without Europe, America will become an island off the shores
11 of eurasia, condemned to the kind of pure balance-of-power
12 politics which I have described as difficult to reconcile with
the national genius.

13
14 And moreover, as I have pointed out, relations within the
15 Western Hemisphere and Europe provide the opportunity for the
16 kind of moral consensus without which America has never been
able to sustain a dynamic policy.

17
18 But while the administration has put forward an
19 imaginative vision for the Western Hemisphere, it has failed
to do the equivalent for the North Atlantic area, in part
20 because it has never resolved its own ambivalence between
21 relying on traditional alliances and its preference for
22 multilateralism.

23
24 The administration has been reluctant and ambivalent with
respect to NATO expansion, torn between the alliance policy
25 which it inherited and the multilateralism which it prefers.

18

1 It is aware of the German distaste for having the border of

2 NATO on the eastern border of Germany and of the desire of the

3 Visegrad countries -- Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and

4 Hungary -- to join NATO.

5 But it is not really comfortable with traditional

6 alliances. It prefers to build Europe from east to west based

7 on Russia, rather than from west to east based on the nations

8 bordering the North Atlantic.

9 Therefore, it has put forward the so-called Partnership

10 for Peace in which all the members of NATO, the former

11 satellite orbit, the successor republics of the Soviet Union,

12 the European neutrals and Russia itself are invited to.

13 participate and to describe it as a first step for admission

14 into NATO.

15 I believe that this is impossible. NATO was designed to

16 resist a definable danger. The Partnership is designed not

17 for defense but for reassurance. The Atlantic Alliance

18 assumed that its threats came from outside the treaty area.

19 The Partnership seeks to avoid threats within its area by

20 the affirmation of good intentions. Membership that is

21 composed of so many disparate purposes will cause NATO policy

22 to become increasingly contradictory.

23 The nations of Central and Eastern Europe are joining the

24 Partnership for Peace because they see it as a steppingstone

25 into NATO. Russia is joining it to drain NATO of content.

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1. Thus, when we imply to Poland that NATO membership is
2. just around the corner and to Russia that it can participate
3. in the same security arrangement, we are signing promissory
4. notes that will be impossible to fulfill.

5. In recent months the administration has advocated
6. expansion of NATO but avoided a timetable, which is the only
7. basis on which serious planning can take place.

8. Until the question of membership is settled, the
9. revitalization of NATO will mark time.

10. Until the Partnership and the NATO structure are
11. separated to some extent, the Alliance is bound to languish.
12. No one familiar with how NATO operates can believe that, as
13. now constituted, the Alliance bureaucracy can plan programs
14. for 22 new members and simultaneously generate an adaptation
15. of the Alliance itself to new circumstances.

16. So the question comes down in part to how to assess the
17. future of Western relationships to Russia. Russia should
18. indeed be made welcome in institutions that foster economic,
19. cultural and political cooperation with the West.

20. I also support the administration's program of economic
21. assistance. But these purposes can be achieved much better in
22. the nonmilitary institutions of Atlantic cooperations within
23. NATO.

24. Moreover, a tendency to treat Russian leaders as if they
25. were fragile creatures easily flustered by exposure to the

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1 realities of international politics is an invitation to

2 disillusionment and misunderstanding.

3 A moderate Russian foreign policy will be impeded, not

4 helped, by turning a blind eye to the reappearance of Russian

5 imperial pretensions, such as suppressions of Russian armies

6 in Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan and many other

7 former republics of the Soviet Union.

8 Russia's effort at reform cannot exempt it from accepted

9 principles of international relations. It is ambiguity about

10 dividing lines, not their existence, and ambivalence about

11 Western reactions, not their certainty, that tempt militarists

12 and nationalists.

13. Reform will be strengthened if moderates are put into a

14 position of being able to emphasize the danger of

15 nationalistic policies.

16 This leads to the following conclusions: the structure

17 of American-European relations needs to be modified. With the

18 military threat receding and the risk of political crises

19 growing, the political role of the Atlantic Alliance should be

20 given greater emphasis.

21 The most sensitive issue is NATO expansion, which must be

22 put behind us if a new relationship is to be established. And

23 it requires a decision, not a study.

24 Nevertheless, security can no longer be the principal

25 unifying bond of the Atlantic nations. Common purposes, not

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1 common fears, should provide the cohesion in the new era in
2 which economic and social issues will play such a large role.

3 One such initiative would be a North Atlantic free trade
4 area for manufactured goods and services, with negotiations on
5 agriculture to follow. Conditions are propitious.

6 Labor standards and wage scales on the two sides of the
7 Atlantic, as well as environmental concerns, are comparable.

8 Prime Minister John Major of Great Britain and Foreign
9 Minister Kinkel of Germany have expressed their interest in
10 such a project.

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

15 Now let me turn to Asian policy. The United States has a
16 vital interest in peace and stability in Asia and in
17 constructive relations with the nations bordering the Pacific.
18 When American policymakers think about how to achieve these
19 objectives, they generally focus on Asia's economic dynamism.

20 But America has a fundamental interest to prevent the
21 nations of Asia from forming a bloc inimical to America's
22 purposes either because of the emergence of a hegemonical
23 power in Asia or by ill-judged American policies and
24 pressures.

25 We have to remember that the political situation in

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1 almost every Asian country is extremely fragile.

2 In most of them, tension exists between the
3 internationalism required by global economics and the
4 nationalism which many of the leaders believe is needed for
5 political cohesion.

6 There is pressure on existing alliances and alignments,
7 especially as there is a perception in almost every Asian
8 nation that American policy is itself in a state of flux and
9 that American leaders have become increasingly unpredictable.

10 Japanese policy will take on an increasingly national
11 character. The shock of defeat in World War II has worn off.
12 The end of the cold war has destroyed the conviction that
13 American and Japanese perceptions of their national interest
14 are inevitably parallel.

15 The rise of China, the unification of Korea, the possible
16 shift of the center of gravity of Russian policy towards
17 Siberia, all have a potentially different significance for
18 Japan than for the United States.

19 The size of the Japanese defense budget, already the
20 third largest in the world, reflects this reality, and a
21 Japanese nuclear program in this century cannot be excluded.

22 Japanese and American political purposes are far from
23 irreconcilable. But there is a need for an explicit effort to
24 bring them into closer harmony with each other, a task
25 obscured by the constant confrontations taking place in the

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1 economic field today.

2 Korea, the last remaining divided country in Asia, will

3 be beset by the challenge of unification. It faces a North

4 Korean strategy to delegitimize it and to settle problems

5 directly with the United States, as was the case with

6 negotiations over the North Korean nuclear program.

7 South Korean unease with this process, though publicly

8 understated, clashes to a considerable extent with the

9 administration's apparent conviction that North Korea's

10 rigidity is caused by its exclusion from the world economy and

11 that the United States has a special obligation to soften

12 their sense of isolation.

13 South Korea too is aware that China, and even more Japan,

14 do not share, to put it mildly, its own aspiration toward

15 unification. And if China and the United States continue or

16 increase their confrontation, the situation in Korea could

17 turn ugly.

18 The nations of Southeast Asia can be divided into those

19 which are above all afraid of China and those which are more

20 concerned about Vietnam. The first group cultivates close

21 relations with Vietnam, the latter emphasizes relations with

22 Beijing.

23 In the next decade India will emerge as a major power.

24 And it is likely to continue a traditional policy initiated by

25 the British raj of seeking a major, if not dominant, role in

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1 the arc from Aden to Singapore, which would produce diplomatic

2 problems with China in Burma and Tibet, and with Indonesia,

3 Vietnam and China in Southeast Asia.

4 I have mentioned these factors because there is too much

5 of a tendency to look at American policy on an ad hoc basis

6 country by country. And also because in Asia we do not have

7 the benefit of regional groupings, except for ASEAN, that

8 exist in Europe.

9 The nations of Asia have never organized themselves into
10 a highly economic or defense community. They tend to perceive
11 each other as strategic rivals and potential threats.

12 This state of affairs has caused the United States to
13 play the principal stabilizing role in Asia through a series
14 of bilateral security and political arrangements.

15 I stress all of this because it is my conviction that in
16 the post-cold war world the United States is in an excellent
17 position to advance America's long-term interests in Asia, so
18 long as it keeps in mind that its disagreements with most of
19 those nations is less than theirs with each other.

20 The United States bargaining position is excellent, so
21 long as we pursue a strategy of good relations with all of the
22 parties and throw our weight in the direction of our national
23 interest as the occasion demands.

24 In recent years, the United States has not only failed to
25 draw the benefits from this state of affairs by embroiling

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1 itself in sometimes needless conflicts with all of them

2 simultaneously.

3 It ought to be a settled maxim of American foreign policy

4 not to take on the principal nations of Asia simultaneously.

5 The opposite has been the case. During the calendar year of

6 1995, the United States has been in confrontation with Japan

7 and China simultaneously and in recent days has managed to

8 throw in a glancing blow at Thailand as well.

9 I have already mentioned the confrontational policy vis-

10 a-vis Japan on economics. Our case is good, and the issue we

11 raise is valid, but we must work with Japan on trying to

12 develop some kind of common approach to the evolving situation

13. in Asia if the emerging Japanese national consciousness is not

14 to turn totally inward.

15 By far the most worrisome immediate area concerns Sino-

16 American relations. When the chairman invited me to speak

17 here, I had no intention of covering that subject, except in

18 the general way I have covered Asian policy.

19 But I would like to make now a number of points, because

20 it seems to me that a wise American policy in Asia requires

21 relations with China, not because of we approve of their

22 system, quite the contrary, but in our own self-interest to

23 maintain the flexibility and creativity of our diplomacy.

24 Having just returned from a visit to Beijing, which was

25 long planned and is not related to the current situation, I

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1 have the impression that our two countries are on a collision course.

3 I want to warn against the dangerous argument that good relations were important in the cold war but have lost their significance with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

6 Open conflict with China would tempt both countries to organize Asia against the other, encouraging virulent nationalism everywhere.

9 While an overbearing Chinese policy could at some point in the future drive American policy to such an expedient, nothing in the contemporary world calls for it. The weight of our interests is in precisely the opposite direction.

13 America and China should have a parallel interest in equilibrium in Asia for the foreseeable future. China wants the United States to help balance its relationships with powerful neighbors, Japan, Russia and India.

17 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.

21 If these issues move to the Sino-American relationship, it would facilitate dealing with human rights and other issues like this by providing a strategic context.

24 At the moment, this is not happening. Sino-American relations are in a free fall. The immediate cause has been

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1 the granting of a visa to President Lee Teng-hui of Taiwan.

2 But the issue would not have taken on such dimensions had
3 the visit not been the culmination of a series of U.S. Actions
4 perceived in Beijing as unilateral and high-handed abrogations
5 of existing agreements.

6 Similarly, Chinese actions, such as the detention of
7 Harry Wu, are interpreted in Washington as deliberate
8 challenges to human rights concerns.

9 To many Americans, the immediate issue with respect to
10 Taiwan appears as the sovereign American right to determine
11 the entry of visitors. Beijing perceives the same actions as
12 a "two China" policy to which 6 American presidents have
13 formally forsworn over a period of 23 years.

14 The danger of the existing roller coaster towards
15 confrontation to both China and the United States and to
16 stability and progress in Asia is incalculable. A containment
17 policy toward China under present circumstances is a pipe
18 dream.

19 Unlike the containment policy of a generation ago, it
20 will have no takers. It will force every nation of Asia to
21 take sides with uncertain outcome and with a guaranteed
22 enhancement of Asia nationalism.

23 America's ability to influence Japan will dramatically
24 decline. Korea may turn into a tenderbox. Nations with
25 hegemonical aspirations, or even territorial claims, will

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1 sense new opportunities.

2 China will try to organize the nations of Asia into a

3 grouping to oppose America. The European nations will eagerly

4 step into the vacuum, a process whose outlines are already

5 discernible.

6 To be sure, China may suffer even greater economic

7 damage, and it is even more vulnerable to unleashed Asian

8 nationalism. But this will prove little consolation in the

9 midst of the decline in restraints that collapsing confidence

10 in American leadership will produce.

11 I believe there must be a moratorium on further

12 unilateral steps in Washington by both the Executive Branch

13 and the Congress and an end to invective from Beijing as well

14 as pressures from Taiwan to permit a calm reassessment.

15 On the verge of producing a reversal of the policies

16 which have benefitted both countries and international

17 stability, all sides should step back before it is too late

18 and irreparable damage is done.

19 Specifically, the administration should at last define

20 what it understands by the "one China" policy, proclaimed by 6

21 presidents for 23 years and in three formal agreements signed

22 by three different presidents of both political parties as the

23 prelude to resuming a political dialogue with Beijing.

24 The Congress should stop ad hoc measures and work for a

25 joint course with the administration. Taiwan should think

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1 again before pressing America on a course that in the end may
2 isolate Taiwan and force it to take the blame for consequences
3 it does not always foresee.

4 At the end of a period when its reserves have grown to
5 $100 billion and it has been able to enter international
6 institutions and participate in international meetings,
7 Beijing should end its invective and take seriously issues.
8 about which Americans feel deeply, such as the fate of Harry
9 Wu, as a prelude to resumed negotiations with Washington.

10 Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I have attempted
11 to describe the overall condition of American foreign policy,
12 as well as two major problem areas.

13 And in a way I am sorry to have become involved in a
14 contemporary issue which however seems to me to go to the very
15 heart of the future of American policy in Asia.

16 I want to conclude with an appeal for bipartisanship.
17 The national interest of the United States does not change
18 every four years. At the end of the Second World War, it took
19 America four years to develop the policies which saw us
20 through the cold war.

21 Some of the current controversies are therefore the
22 inevitable mechanism by which a free people shapes the vision
23 of its future.

24 Let us dedicate ourselves to accomplishing our task with
25 the same success that shaped the immediate postwar world.

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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 destinations with

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

2 easily, 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
tendencies everywhere, not only there.

8
9 But there we would have to rely more on traditional
patterns of balance of power and equilibrium.

10
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
fundamental American interests, we should resist.

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

[w]

34

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,
19 political changes are 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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one China. Second, we urge dissolution of the one China

problem by peaceful means.

I believe that Taiwan has prospered under this

arrangement with an extraordinary economy, progress in its own

domestic institutions.

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

proposals earlier this year which probably do not meet all

that Taiwanese leaders are looking for, but that granted

independent armed forces on Taiwan and a very substantial

measure, total measure, of self-government.

Now, I believe those issues to be discussed between

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

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

especially so long as it is conducted peacefully.

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

a good possibility of finding some Chinese solution, some

practical arrangement that maintains the principle of one

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

their own internal fate.

Senator Pell: Would you concur that inevitably the China

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

in the other countries around the world. Communism is an

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

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

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 Dnchokin once said he does not care whether a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice, which is a very pragmatic approach.

But the classic communist system will be substantially modified by the internal evolution of China, I think 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 -- I think once NATO is extended to Vladivostak, 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 a vision for a peaceful world order.
19 And we did not have the options that President Reagan later
20 had.

21 And, frankly, if President Reagan's rhetoric had been
22 used in 1969, I shudder to think what would have happened in
23 terms of all the demonstrations.

24 By 1980, I would like to think that the policies pursued
25 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.

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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Yeltsin is now governing more or less by decree, and he

is engaged in a series of fairly violent acts. There are

Russian troops on the territories of many neighboring

republics.

And I would say the key to good Russo-American relations,

that Russian troops stay for the first time in 400 years

within their territory. That territory extends from

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

And St. Petersburg is closer to New York than to

Vladivostok, which is closer to Seattle than to Moscow. So

they should not feel claustrophobic.

[Laughter.]

Dr. Kissinger: So I think this is the key to a good

relationship. They have a right not to feel threatened. But

with 20,000 nuclear weapons, the threat of an invasion from

Europe is nonexistent.

And I would go along with a concept whereby no foreign

troops would be stationed on the territory of new NATO members

like Poland, as is done in Eastern Germany.

That security concern can be met. But this attempt to

start to play domestic politics in Russia is doomed. And we

should have a policy that reasonable Russians can support,

making it clear that their interests are respected, but we

cannot tie our future to one man.

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.

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, he was a
23 well-meaning left-oriented passivist European intellectual,
24 hugely attractive.

25 Now he is one of the most passionate advocates for 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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over and said, "I am deeply interested and I am going to try
to get back, but they need me for a quorum."

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.

Senator Snowe: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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.

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.

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

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

Right now it is the only organization which
institutionally links us to Europe on 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 7 million
people show up as refugees and evolutionarily starts, I believe
the consultant role should be expanded.

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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 other borders 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.

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 and to

14 make 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
4 did when you were Secretary, this committee plays host to
5 foreign heads of state and others.

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

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

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

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

18 And then you consider the bureaucracy that has been
19 built; 600 people stationed in Cairo in the embassy to give
20 away foreign aid. It just does not make any sense, and there
21 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
13 more alienated from Moscow, do you think there is a chance
14 that we would see further fragmentation in the geography of
15 the eastern former Soviet Union, i.e. independent republics?

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

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

22 And there is a Tartar republic, which had made a move
23 towards its economy and maybe even independence, but I think
24 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. 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

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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 Golanites, in Cypress and
5 in Cambodia, and many other places.

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, frankly, they also always adopt routes 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 suddenly 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.

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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 -- 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 -- 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 all of

12 this is going on. They are not going to sit there and let

13 this develop.

14 So unless we have an answer to that question, until we

15 are willing to answer all of these questions, we should be

16 very careful.

17 Basically I think the UN forces should be pulled out.

18 Basically I think the arms embargo probably should be lifted.

19 But as a practical matter, how to lift the embargo. I would

20 prefer to do that through the UN in this case, because the UN

21 is established and then we have the Iraq embargo.

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.

6 Senator Snowe: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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.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
actions within the Western Hemisphere. 22

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 it 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 I, 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. It has -- there is no ethnic
25 identity.

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

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

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

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

13 Senator Snowe: Thank you.

14 The Chairman: Senator Ashcroft.

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

19 Dr. Kissinger: Well, you know, at the beginning these
20 were relatively minor matters. These were not huge
21 operations. And I think we could have interposed ourselves,
22 or NATO could have interposed itself, at that time at
23 relatively little cost.

24 It is, of course, very difficult when you are on the
25 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.

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 certainly 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.

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

23

24

25

UNEDITED
NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION

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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

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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

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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
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

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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.

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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.

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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 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.

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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

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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

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conquest could augment a nation's power like the acquisition 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

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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

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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
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.

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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

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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

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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 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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

JUL-12-1995 11:01

97%

P.20

07-12-95 11:03AM

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P021

19
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
pressure as well as protection against excessive European
nationalism.

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P.21

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20
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.

JUL-12-1995 11:02

97%

P.22

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TO KAI

P023

21

JUL-12-1995 11:02

97%

P.23

07-12-95 01:00PM

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22

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 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.

JUL-12-1995 12:53

97%

P.02

07-12-95 11:03AM

TO KAI

P025

23

JUL-12-1995 11:03

97%

P.25

07-12-95 11:03AM

TO KAI

P026

24

JUL-12-1995 11:03

97%

P.26

07-12-95 11:03AM

TO KAI

P027

25

JUL-12-1995 11:04

97%

P.27

07-12-95 11:03AM

TO KAI

P028

26

JUL-12-1995 11:04

98%

P.28

07-12-95 11:03AM

TO KAI

P029

27

JUL-12-1995 11:04

97%

P.29