MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

30 WADSWORTH STREET
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 02139

RECEIVED

NOV. 9 1966

N

U.C.

November 15, 1966

To: Mr. Joseph E. Slater
Ford Foundation

From: Professor Lincoln P. Bloomfield

Subject: SOME FRESH LINES OF ATTACK ON U.N. PROBLEMS

A. <u>The Current Situation</u>

1. The recent peacekeeping crisis in the U.N. has vividly il-
luminated the gulf that remains in this age between the philosophy of
supranationalism and the realities of national behavior. The most impor-
tant ingredients of effective peacekeeping--firm political support, a
workable directive, and consistent revenues--are all, generally speaking,
missing. The fundamental basis of true community--a genuine consensus--
is deficient across a wide range of global and even regional efforts.
The effect has been a steady erosion of even minimal programs of collec-
tive security, pacific settlement of disputes, and peaceful change.

2. The population explosion of nations, particularly new Afri-
can states, has importantly changed the balance of parliamentary power
in the U.N. and specialized agencies. The powerful and rich countries
retain their power. But the changed arithmetic has altered the tone of
international organization as well as the quality of the diplomatic pro-
cesses that are conducted there. Whatever else is agreed upon or accom-
plished by the U.N. in the next few years, the period will predictably
be dominated by the passionately-held feelings of the African countries
on racial questions and, to an only slightly lesser extent, colonial and
developmental problems. Pressures on Rhodesia, South Africa, and Portu-
gal will mount, with growing demands for draconic measures to be taken.
The white Western countries, particularly the United States, will press
for moderation and reluctantly agree to marginally immoderate measures,
producing increasing estrangement between North and South in the U.N.

3. In the world as a whole there is a discernible trend toward unilateral acts of force, whether under the banner of revolution, reprisal, or a policing function. This trend more than any other is increasingly infecting international diplomacy with a spirit of cynicism. It is magnified

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inside the U.N. as a result of the other factors at work.

4. Some factors beyond the ken of international organizations are contributing to the sense of malaise. One is a neo-isolationist trend already visible among some Western liberals. Another grows out of the mounting disparity in growth rates and living standards as between the developing and the developed nations.

5. Radical remedies for these ills appear unlikely. Some steps can of course be taken. I will not repeat here arguments advanced elsewhere that only through the most purposeful and far-seeing national action can some of the current trends be reversed.* But unless some positive currents can be brought to bear on the picture, it can be anticipated that cynicism will grow, not only towards international organization but towards international cooperation as a whole in the political and security fields. A predictable accompaniment of this will be increased alienation from the cause of organized international cooperation in the most important fields. This in turn is likely further to radicalize the outlook of the underdeveloped blocs, accelerating the embitterment of the white West, and discouraging moderation on both sides.

6. All of this can be only unhealthy for the cause of world peace and understanding. It is not too much to predict that the leading positions in international machinery would tend to fall to the radical elements in all camps, including the Communist world, a circumstance in the middle-term of planning that looks extremely damaging to broad United States interests.

7. The concrete damage done by an unchecked unfolding of this scenario can be measured in terms of a profound paradox. At the same time as these trends have taken shape, the objective need for institutions to cope with common international problems has grown, not diminished. Obvious and glaring examples are the very sectors we have been discussing-- settlement of quarrels, given the dangers of escalation; peacekeeping, given the predictability of future crises; curves of population and growth, with precisely the wrong ones respectively growing and declining; outer space, with up to 10,000 objects predicted to be in orbit by the 1970's; in atomic-energy controls ("after non-proliferation--or proliferation-- what?"); and many other areas of prime importance and even urgency.

8. If in the face of negative trends, urgent positive tasks can be contemplated, fundamental questions about the international organization movement will have to be asked again: What kind of U.N. will the world in fact support in the medium-term future? What will be the role of the great powers? Which will be the great powers? How can numbers

*Lincoln P. Bloomfield, "Peacekeeping and Peacemaking," *Foreign Affairs*, July 1966, pages 677, 678, 679.

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and responsibility be traded off in politically acceptable ways so that an international decision-making process relevant to the needs is developed? Any major review of the relationship of the U.N. to key nations like our own, and of its capacity to meet oncoming problems, that does not address itself at least in part to these questions is not likely to be very useful.

9. The U.N. has suffered from special difficulties in the past when new leads have been called for to offset negative trends. Such leads have often taken the form of gimmicks, or sought short-term gains that proved transitory. Alternatively, remedial planning about the U.N. generates unrealistic long-term proposals. And sometimes the very intractability of the central problems of international organization have diverted well-wishers to marginal or very secondary avenues of attack.

10. As it has always been true, so now the United States remains, despite a frequently delicate and even invidious position vis à vis other countries, inescapably committed to playing the role history seems to have assigned to it. Even though this country will undoubtedly increase its involvement in the task of suppressing aggressive and/or Communist-led revolutionary movements in the years ahead, thus diminishing still further its international popularity, it remains virtually the only nation able and willing to underwrite new leads that are potent enough to change the shape of events. Responsible Americans seem to be losing confidence in the capacity of this country to act in internationally creative ways. This cannot be accepted, creating as it does the image of a giant with a strong back and a tiny brain--an image I for one am not prepared to accept.

11. There are powerful tactical reasons for the United States and other influential Western countries to consider major steps in the U.N. aimed at shifting the global focus from Vietnam, as well as competing with the racial issues for the machinery of international political organization. This tactical need itself justifies serious American efforts at the present time that go well beyond gimmicky. But it is the strategic political situation sketched above that supplies the real rationale for serious actions. The Government, for a variety of reasons, seems unlikely to take the necessary steps. There is thus an important reason for private, non-governmental personnel and institutions to see what they can do. No grounds for real short-term optimism exist concerning the basic contours of the international organization picture. But perhaps some things are possible.

## B. Some Possible Lines of Attack

NOTE: 1) I assume it goes without saying that any major effort by an American foundation in the present international environment, and particularly at the U.N., faces certain obvious hazards and handicaps.

2) There is much in Larry Finkelstein's memorandum of 1962 that I like and agree with, particularly his

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suggestions for efforts to be made through interna-
tional consortia. This is not easy, but I think his
approach is the correct one. At the same time I have
taken my own approach here rather than attempting to
connect it with the one Larry took.

3) Regarding suggestions for activities in the economic development field, you should see Max Millikan's memorandum to David Bell dated October 27, 1966.

The philosophy of what follows is to come as close as possible to the central strategic issues sketched out in A., with a view to seeing to what extent the Ford Foundation might be in a position to affect them. No effort is made to look for things on the fringe, where Foundation support would probably be welcomed but effects either very indirect, or too long-range to be interesting.

Peacekeeping

1. There seems to be virtually unanimous agreement that in the international security field, U.N. peacekeeping represents a crucial way to help fill the gap in politico-military capabilities between unilateral intervention on the one hand, and organized collective security on the other. There also seems to be agreement among sensible people that U.N. peacekeeping and peace observation, generally speaking, be organized on an ad hoc basis, and that there are limits to the value of preliminary planning. Even the financing of peacekeeping operations will be determined ad hoc, and if the situation is serious enough, someone will pay for it, or else no one one will ask questions about where the money is coming from at the time the operation is launched. The most important element remains a widespread understanding that peacekeeping and peace observation are desirable. This understanding is, I think, growing, despite recent setbacks. China will of course be another story.

The next most important missing element today within the limits indicated above is in the realm of advance planning for peacekeeping and peace observation. Under present circumstances this is something the U.N. cannot do. If it is to be done at all, it must be on a do-it-yourself basis. I can envisage an important contribution being made here, particularly if African and Eastern European elements can be introduced into a concerted program of planning.

2. One useful tangible means that could be made available would be for a physical site for peacekeeping training. At the outset it could be modest and experimental, looking first at developing a curriculum for peacekeeping and peace-observation purposes that would include, inter alia, high-speed international linguistics, the training of potential disarma- ment inspectors, common international communications procedures, "police

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games," and the like.* The promising development now underway in Paris under the auspices of the World Veterans Federation (see Appendix) could also present important opportunities to encourage active international efforts.

3. In the same spirit, we might be able to learn more about the possibility of new sources of U.N. revenue by <u>organizing operational research</u> that experimented with "farming" the sea and "mining" the seabed. The purpose would be to learn more about both the kinds of costs and the kinds of pay-offs involved in the so far abstract--but nevertheless intriguing--proposals that have been made for future international revenues from these sources. One could envisage the participation of a group of sea-faring under-developed countries, plus trained oceanographers, whose dual purpose could include research on additional food resources from the sea, as well as on new developmental opportunities for the developing countries.

## <u>Unofficial Discussions</u>

4. I was struck by the success of the International Assembly on Nuclear Weapons last June in Scarborough, Canada, in which twenty-five nations participated. The atmosphere of discussion and consideration, even though many of the delegates were responsible policy officials and diplomats, struck me as significantly different from the open forums of international organization or customary diplomacy. Another striking experience of this same sort in recent times was the conference Joe Johnson put on last February in Princeton involving a small high-level team of Foreign Office officials and U.N. representatives from Britain, Canada, and France plus a few private experts. Both of these suggested to me that great promise may lie in efforts to arrange <u>private and off-the-record</u> meetings of selected Foreign Office and diplomatic personnel plus a few expert scholars <u>to deal with central issues</u> confronting the countries in diplomatic forums, or coming up.

5. Given the happy experience at Toronto, including the wide participation of Communist and developing countries as well as of the West, it might be well to build on the International Assembly's experience. The format could be altered, eliminating the American Assembly's agreed report procedure and concentrating on something less formal.

6. I am aware that other comparable activities have taken place, such as the Bilderberg conference and <u>ad hoc</u> efforts by the Friends. Pugwash (or Coswa) has been perhaps the most extensive of these efforts at

*For details including those of cost see my proposals in *International Military Forces*, (Little, Brown, 1964), Chapter 7 entitled "A Proposal"

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the working level, but its defect has been the commitment of most of the participants to certain kinds of formulas of action, as well as the limitation of the conferees to a certain sector of the scientific population. My feeling is that the need is for more centrally involved and politically sophisticated people--but not simply *personae* with big names--to be brought together in this way. I have in mind what might be called the senior working level, plus a sprinkling of both ministerial level and non-governmental personnel. One by-product that could be extremely useful might be the attempt to involve Chinese communist personnel at a time when they are either not taking part in inter-governmental conferences, or are joining organizations and creating difficulties.

7. For such an enterprise to work, it must have impeccable credentials as well as the financial ability to make a meeting interesting and attractive. Having such a program co-sponsored by the Soviet Union might help to insure the presence of neutrals (though some of our own friends might begin to boggle at increased Soviet-American hegemony). But, as you know, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences has run into all kinds of difficulties in trying to arrange a joint Soviet-American program, as did W. Young in seeking joint Soviet-American sponsorship of his lamented *Disarmament and Arms Control*.

8. In the same general connection, I have been impressed with the way Brookings Institution has been seeking to develop a serious group of able younger scholars in this country in the international organization field by means of their two-week Airlie House briefings each spring. This is gradually developing a core of well-informed and motivated junior scholars and potential diplomatic officers who have shared common professional briefings as well as committee-drafting experiences. I wonder whether this might not be tried on an international basis.

9. In thinking of broadened international sponsorship for ventures of these various sorts, I would mention the growing interest of three Scandinavian countries in developing institutional activities in the defense, disarmament, arms control, and peace fields, and who are still looking for proper roles to play. African participation would doubtless be most difficult to arrange, but perhaps moderate leaders of the O.A.U. would welcome a chance to organize and participate in serious international private policy-planning kinds of discussions. I would remind you that the I.S.S. has managed to invent some Continental centers of strategic research in order to be able to relate to them. International committees to sponsor the kind of discussions I am proposing might well rest on national institutes or committees created in a kind of Marshall Plan gambit by the sponsors of the program.

(In this connection Henry Owen several times in recent years urged me to encourage this kind of activity outside the government in order to generate ideas and put pressures on our own government in the field of United Nations policy and programs.)

## Science and Technology

10. It is becoming widely understood that the problem here is

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not insufficient knowledge but too much of it, little related to its social and political impacts. I am aware of some of the efforts to bring into focus scientific and technological developments for possible U.N. activity. But a world conference with hundreds or even thousands of learned papers communicates badly if at all to the policy community. I have recently been working my way through various efforts at projections into the future based on changing technology.* There is little inherent in these projections that connects them meaningfully with politico-social needs and possibilities, despite the fact that they often supply precise lead-times and change rates.

11. It has become trite to deplore the lag involved here. But there seems to me a very specific problem that has not been tackled systematically. It is to translate these forecasts about hardware into an operational, policy-oriented format and language, so political leaders and diplomats can make use of them, particularly within U.N. and other international organization frameworks. This job of translation is badly accomplished within governments, even within our own. UNITAR ought to be tackling something like this, but the Secretariat will suffer by definition from the innate conservatism of governments in facing the possible need for drastic changes in policy in order to meet onrushing technology. Some academic researchers have moved in the desired direction, and some isolated plicy negotiations have reflected the issues successfully.

12. But to improve our capacity to master the overall relationship, what is needed is neither purely scholarly research nor the negotiation of current policy for which the participants have to take responsibility. It is rather to relate this panorama of scientific and technical change to the possibility of realistic international political, economic, social, and even military programs over a planning period running until at least 1975, and to do it in ways that improve the state of the art of politico-socio forecasting and planning in a technological age.

13. What suggests itself is an effort outside of--but in close liaison with--governments and the U.N. A good format for this endeavor might be something like the panels we are setting up in the U.N.A.-U.S.A. policy-studies series, but on an international scale. Such international study groups or commissions could take on topical areas in the spirit of the best of the U.S. International Cooperation Year panels. Their reports

*See for instance the two-volume collection edited by Nigel Calder entitled *The World in 1984*, Penguin, 1964, consisting of forecasts by some of the world's most eminent scientists that appeared in the British *Scientist* magazine in 1964, as well as forecast material prepared by the Rand Corporation, Bendix Company, Lockheed, TEMPO, etcetera.

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could be equally concise and geared to the busy policy-maker's absorptive habits and wavelength. Above all, they could be framed in terms that lend themselves to the development or use of U.N. machinery, or of other _ad hoc_ political arrangements.

14. Since writing this I have been made aware of current discussions at a CFR Discussion Group of a possible International Science Foundation or Institute to perform some functions relevant to the above discussion. My feeling is that for the kind of combined analysis, synthesis, and predictive effort I have in mind, a one-time group might be more likely to produce at the desired level than a permanent staff. Perhaps a combination of the two ideas is worth exploring.

## Outer Space

15. The spirit in which the space arena needs to be approached today is so far as I am concerned, still that in which in 1960 I urged that the United States symbolically offer its first moon shot to the international community, entitling it a "U.N. shot," as a countermove against the growing spirit of extreme nationalism.* The same spirit appears in your own August 17 proposal for a U.N.-operated satellite to broadcast U.N. information and news. To encourage this, one might consider _giving the U.N. something in kind, such as a ground station that can transmit objective U.N. reportage_ via INTELSAT satellites (and SECAM as well).

16. At present of course all satellite-relayed programs are received by national networks. The revolution in space-relayed communications will come when direct broadcasts to individual receivers of broadcast quality F.M. and even of television broadcasts with multiple-language selectors will be technologically feasible. I think it is of great importance that (as I had recommended in 1960) "U.S. planning should begin now to ensure that such potential propaganda and educational weapons are regulated and preferably operated by the United Nations rather than by any single government."** The difficulties here are overwhelming, particularly as national and commercial satellite relays multiply. I believe I would modify the recommendation to envisage an international F.C.C.-type of monitor, goad, and innovator. The F.C.C.'s own performance, and the strictly limited purview of the I.T.U., suggest once more an outside effort to analyze, discuss, and design an imaginative yet politically appropriate program for the future here. An international blue-ribbon

*The United Nations and U.S. Foreign Policy, (Little, Brown, 1960), p. 227.

**Ibid, p. 119.

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commission with a competent international staff could set up a standard
to which both the cautious and the nervous might more easily repair.

## Disarmament and Arms Control

17. These are not basically U.N. problems at all. But the U.N. role at the margins is in fact increasing, as emphasis shifts to regional arms-races and to world-wide proliferation of nuclear weapons. In addition, the U.N. has been serving as the place for important private diplomatic negotiations on arms control matters, and, as in the case of the 1963 bombs-in-orbit resolution, a convenient place for registering superpower agreement.

18. But the U.N. as potential administrator of arms control agreements has been little studied, other than in utopian terms. Little can be done today in the absence of actual agreements. But in one sector, a breakthrough in technical and managerial arts might have a profound future impact on both the prospect for agreements and the possibility of a politically acceptable role for international organization. To the extent that inspection and verification procedures can be "automated," so to speak, and the need for deep intrusion minimized, to that extent, in my judgment, the odds for agreements in this vital area improve. I think this point is supported by the test ban negotiations, and indeed by the entire political history of disarmament negotiations. The point is vividly driven home by showing that something like the U.S. SAMOS observation and reconnaissance satellite may become the single most important factor in creating an open world which is a precondition for so much else.

19. I have sketched out elsewhere the important connection between the technology, the U.N. managerial problem, and the political decision-making process."* I would recommend finding ways, possibly through UNITAR, or through ACDA-sponsored research, but more likely through non-governmental, non-American agencies, to provide this lead with the utmost vigor. Broad details that suggest themselves are for a research program combining technical skills and equipment with politically-sophisticated analysis. The simulation of the processes of information gathering and of the decision-making process surrounding it might be extremely fruitful. A possible agency for action, by the way, would be the Swedish Peace Research Institute, which is already experimenting with handling seismic data as a service to a potential test ban agreement.

## Long-Range Planning on the U.N.

20. In the early 1950's I was the responsible State Department officer on the subject of "U.N. Charter Review." A specially created Department-wide committee, after studying the whole situation, concluded definitively that, as Dean Rusk used to say, we could not get as good a

*Lincoln P. Bloomfield, "The Politics of Administering Disarmament," *Disarmament and Arms Control*, Vol. I., No. 2, 1963

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Charter as we have now if it had to be negotiated again.

21. After another dozen years or so, I am not as sure I was then that Mr. Dulles had, by opening Pandora's box, let out a Trojan Horse. Some recent constitutional issues such as financing and peacekeeping, the need for associate membership for the mini-states and the generally changed arithmetic, and above all the implications of Red China's entry--all lead me to wonder whether the present structure is in fact appropriate for the next period. The crucial question remains whether anything about the Charter itself stands in the way of improved international relationships. I would say, as of today, possibly not--but perhaps.

22. Because of the political atmosphere, and the tentative nature of the question, this seems to me an appropriate area in which non-governmental efforts might be focused. A good way to get at the problem would be application on a large and serious scale of the kind of political gaming which some of us have been active in developing in recent years.* I think it might serve an extremely useful purpose if a wholly <u>privately-sponsored</u> international dry-run Charter review conference were "gamed out," using the best individuals, public or private, one could obtain from all the countries in the world, while making it crystal clear that the positions taken have no official standing. I think it would be great fun, and it could be enormously instructive in giving governments a preview of some contingent developments in a real-life Charter review process. And incidentally, one advantage would be that if any countries did not participate, their roles could be played by area specialists from other countries, as is done all the time in games.

## Teaching of I.O.

23. I imagine the Foundation has been very much involved in this, but I have been recently struck once more by the rather small proportion of the American higher education community that seems to provide any serious educational offerings in the field of international organization (or even international relations). This is a subject which some of us have raised in the Board of Editors of <u>International Organization</u>, and I have now suggested to the S.S.R.C. I.O. committee that we consider a joint effort to secure a better factual picture. The outcome of such an analysis could well be a recommendation for <u>strengthening teaching capabilities</u> both here and abroad in the field of international relations in general, and <u>international organization in particular</u>.

*See for instance, Lincoln P. Bloomfield and Barton Whaley, "The Political Military Exercise: A Progress Report," *Orbis*, Winter 1965, Vol. VIII. No. 4

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APPENDIX

SOME CURRENT ACTIVITY OF RELEVANCE

1. In the research field the Social Science Research Council has included for two years a Committee on International Organization, financed by the Carnegie Corporation, which has sought to stimulate new thinking and new directions in research dealing with international organizations. If more information is desired, I will be glad as a member to supply it or arrange for it to be supplied.

2. The Brookings Institution has, as you know, been carrying forward selected studies of the United Nations and U.S. foreign policy.

3. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has had in existence for about two years a Committee on International Organization, which meets in Geneva. I am a very inactive member of this committee, which so far as I know is still pursuing research in several capitals concerning the role of permanent representatives to international organizations.

4. As to planning, the only current major and serious effort I am aware of, following the U.N. project I directed here at M.I.T. in recent years, is at the Center for Foreign Policy Research at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

5. In public relations and education, the principal effort I am involved in or even aware of is the U.N.A.-U.S.A. Policy Studies Committee, which you support.

6. One special activity involves peacekeeping. As a result of a number of explorations and initiatives by Norwegian and Canadian officials with which some of us assisted, the World Veterans Federation in Paris recently created an International Information Center on Peacekeeping Operations. It has modest support from the governments of Norway and Canada, pledges from the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, and a small amount of money from a number of trusts and foundations. I have asked Jim Knott in Paris to send you background information concerning this center and its International Advisory Committee (of which I am the American member).