REMARKS OF THE HONORABLE HENRY A. KISSINGER BEFORE THE
AMERICAN SOCIETY OF ASSOCIATION EXECUTIVES ON AUGUST 12
AT CONSTITUTION HALL IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I would like to talk to you about some of the major issues in American foreign policy that we will confront over the next decade. I would like to stress that one of the biggest problems we have faced is the divisiveness that has arisen with respect to our national objectives, to our role in the world, our influence and our power. Fundamental foreign policy objectives of the United States cannot change every four or eight years. To the extent that foreign nations believe that the United States' foreign policy is capricious, partisan, tied to individual perceptions we become an element of insecurity in the world. One of the biggest problems we face today around the globe is the doubt whether we know where we are going and whether one can rely on the United States for an indefinite period of time. I believe one of the fundamental goals of the campaign that is about to start must be to restore to America a sense of direction and to give to the peoples of the world a sense that the fundamental values, objectives and purposes of the United States are settled and will be maintained on a nonpartisan basis over an extended period of time. This, seems to me, to involve three requirements. As you know, I have been among those who have been critical of many aspects of contemporary foreign policy. I nevertheless believe that those of us who criticize the existing policy have an obligation to put forward not only what we oppose but what we affirm. It is necessary to build American strength. But it is also necessary to give the world a vision of hope. It is essential to resist the disintegration of the security of free countries and the assault on the geopolitical balance that has been the hallmark of the recent past. But it is also important to lay out what vision of the world we affirm and to which we will strive to achieve. At the same time, the party that is not in office has an obligation to make sure that it conducts its campaign from the point of view that the fundamental national security objectives should not be politicized. This means that it should maintain the tradition that those Cabinet officers who hold the highest positions on the National Security Council not make themselves into political partisans during the election campaign. In no previous administration of either party has the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and the National Security Adviser participated in partisan controversy. I believe that it is

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imperative that the present administration maintain that tradition.
Third, I think it is important that highly delicate controversial
issues that have remained unsettled for three and one-half years
not be resolved by public pronouncements in the middle of an
election campaign. I do not believe that the middle of an election
campaign is the appropriate moment to announce a new strategy for
conducting nuclear operations--a subject of extraordinary delicacy
of profound consequence for the reactions of the Soviet Union,
of our allies and of our own people. Many of us have been
concerned about the existing strategy. But I do not believe
that it is possible at this moment to engage in a major alteration
when nobody knows what the exact purpose is, when there are no
new forces being announced or created, and no objectives either
for diplomacy or for military forces related to it. I believe
the principle of restraint which I articulated for the opposition
must be followed as well by those who hold office. The conse-
quences of politicizing the debate on foreign policy can other-
wise be too serious for the security of our country and its
relationship with the rest of the world.

With this as a background, let me state a number of issues
that will be confronted after the elections by a new adminis-
tration which require the most urgent solution. The first is
in the area of the military balance. For the greater part of
the postwar period the United States had an overwhelming
strategic superiority. That acted as a restraint on Soviet
aggressiveness with the conventional and other tactical forces
in which they were more numerous and geographically which they
were better placed to employ. There's no student of military
affairs who questions the fact that the strategic superiority
we enjoyed has now disappeared. This creates a period of
extraordinary danger for our allies, for our own country and
for all free peoples who depend on us. It is the fundamental
reason why in Europe more and more questions have been raised
about our leadership on specific issues. It explains why in
the Persian Gulf the announcement of the so-called Carter
Doctrine has not led to a rallying to us of the people that
we are trying to protect but rather to a dissociation of these
very people. The fundamental problem that we will face in the
military field is to develop forces and a strategic doctrine
that enables us to give effect to our commitments. The most
dangerous course is to multiply our commitments without
increasing our capabilities. Other nations have to know
what the United States is prepared to do and that has to be
related to a plausible creation of military forces. Nor
can we do it alone. Our allies must understand that as the
area of threat expands as regions that heretofore were out
of reach of potential aggressors become more and more vulnerable
they must make a greater effort themselves either by cooperating
with us in defending threatened regions like the Persian Gulf or
by making a greater effort in defending themselves and freeing
American forces for the potential defense of that area. But,
it is not possible to put on the shoulders of the United States
the exclusive burden of the defense of all the threatened

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areas on which the security of all industrial democracies depends. So, we will face the problem that the military establishment we now possess has to be significantly augmented and rapidly so because the gravest danger we will face is in the three to five years.

The second problem we face is the geopolitical challenge to the United States and to all free countries. By that I mean the following. Statesmen face the challenge that when their scope for action is greatest the knowledge on which to base such action is at a minimum. When the knowledge is greatest the scope for action has often disappeared. Therefore, a great deal depends on the judgments leaders make about the likely trends and about the risks they run with respect to them. In recent years almost every significant change has occurred as the result of Soviet pressures, Soviet proxy forces, terrorist groups supported by the Soviet Union, or the direct invasion of Soviet troops of adjoining countries from Ethiopia to South Yemen to Afghanistan to Southeast Asia the picture is one: the issues are settled by force, that friendship with the United States has not provided protection, that opposition to the aggressive forces has become increasingly risky in this respect. The fundamental problem we face is to make clear that there is a benefit in being America's friend and that it is dangerous to be America's opponent. That we can help protect our associates and that we can penalize those who challenge us. If this principle is not established we will see an acceleration of the trends that have seen hostages in Iran, Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, pressures on friendly countries such as Morocco, from communist armed guerrillas in adjoining countries, and turmoil in Central America.

The third problem we face is what position to take to the domestic changes that are going on on a global basis. It is true that we live in a period of change and it is also correct that the United States by its tradition and its convictions should not be in a position of defending every status quo that exists everywhere. But it is important for us to understand that many of those who assailed the existing structures do so not in the name of democracy but in the name of establishing their own version of tyranny. In many parts of the world we have placed pressure on friendly governments that are perhaps authoritarian only to replace them with unfriendly governments that are totalitarian and that are undermining all the principles we stand for. In Central America, in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere, we have seen the replacement of friendly governments by hostile governments more repressive that what they have replaced. There is a danger that we will wind up making the world safe not for democracy but for radicalism. So we have before us a huge task to rebuild our strength, to stop the geopolitical offensive that we are confronting, and to identify ourselves with those forces in the world that are compatible with our values and not encourage

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those that in fact undermine security and progress as we
understand it. In order to accomplish these tasks I would
like to strongly support what the preceeding speaker has
said about the importance of revitalizing our own domestic
economy. The United States cannot be stronger abroad than
it is at home. The fact is our investment as a percentage
of the gross national product is now the lowest of the
major industrial democracies. Our investment in research
and development as a percentage of the gross national product
is among the lowest of the major industrial democracies.
Our productivity has declined at an alarming rate. For many
years, Great Britain used to be held up as an example of what
happens as a result of excessive planning. I have a friend who
says we are going in the same direction as Great Britain and
the way we're going we'll get there before they do. We,
therefore, have to liberate the productive energies of America.
We need a new industrial and technological revolution because
unless we again become exemplary in our economic performance
we will not be able to achieve the objectives that I have
described. And yet, when one talks about our challenges it
is easy to be misled. Our principle adversary is a country
that for eighteen years has put tremendous resources behind
its military capabilities and if you increase your military
capabilities at the rate of 5% per year compounded over 18
years, you develop great strength. But in every aspect of
human activity the Soviet performance lags far behind ours
and infinitely behind what we are capable of. Here is a
country governed by an oligarchy of men in their middle
seventies. Because after seventy years in office they have
not yet figured out how to work out a succession. Here is
a country that operates by a system of total planning which
means that every manager has an incentive to understate his
capabilities because given the unbelievable mixups that
occur in a heavily bureaucratized society with tens of millions
of civil servants they do not dare to state ambitious goals
because they can never be sure that they get the allocations
that the plan calls for. A few months ago the Soviet press
reported about an industrial plant that was approved for
tractors near Leningrad. Progress reports were sent in on
the basis of which the existing plant was closed at which
point they found out the first plant had never been built.
If that's what they put in their newspapers, what is not
reported?

We are in this strange situation that the long-term trends
are in our favor. The medium-term trends are very dangerous.
The danger is that Soviet leaders, and others hostile to us,
may want to use this window of opportunity where the military
balance is against us and political trends seem unfavorable
to avoid the fundamental changes in their society that they
will have to face before the decade is out. Our necessity is
to close that window of opportunity, to rally our country to
its necessities, to conduct a foreign policy of affirmation,
to build the strengths to give confidence, to put forward
negotiating positions in the field of arms and others that
raise hope. All of this is within our capability as a united