5

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

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

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

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

6

vulnerable to fluctuating sentiments and transitory occurrences.

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

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

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

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

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

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[_______] is required to maintain the peace of the world.

The present generation sees the Vietnam War as a terrible mistake. This defining experience of their generation guides much of their thinking about war and peace. Whether their experience in respect to Vietnam has affected them in reflecting about the post-Cold War world, as many who deplored America's role in World War I used its injustices and cruelties as an excuse for the brands of nonintervention common in the 1920s and 1930s, is a proposition rarely considered.

As a result, America is presently going through what I believe to be only the beginning of a national debate. And I really have no right to speak here of an American point of view because the American point of view is still being

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American political and international 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 reactionary, proposition. And even when an attempt is made to apply the concept, the national interest continues to be defined in sweeping, ideological terms.

Yet the reality is that the emerging world order will have to be based on some concept of equilibrium, at least some concept of balance among its various regions. In practice, this requires a balance of dissatisfactions. It is impossible for every participant in an international system to be perfectly satisfied with every aspect and at

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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 <u>conquest</u>. In our day,
technology permits quantum changes in a society's power by
changes entirely within its own territory. No conceivable
conquest could augment a nation's power like the acquisition
of nuclear weapons or the mastering of modern information

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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
transaction. 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
and is torn between rivalries for influence and the realized or
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 and declining
a new, more national foreign policy.

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How is American foreign policy to be defined in such a
period? Theoretically, the United States could pursue a
policy in the manner of Britain throughout most of the 19th
century, on a course by care basis, conceiving only its own
natural interest.

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, 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. Third, 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.

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

Let me apply these observations to Asia:

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

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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. For the majority of these nations, the nations of Asia find themselves in a state of transition. These transformations are producing in each country a tension between nationalism and internationalism and, at a

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minimum, will modify existing alliances including the
Japanese-American alliance.

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.

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P.07

Japan's policy is bound to become more national and, above all, more political.

China may already have completed most of the transition 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 a new political influence.

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

India is shifting towards a greater readiness to embrace market economics and a more active foreign policy. 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

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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 and Southeast Asia.

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 *some* 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 *always* their leaders increasingly unpredictable.

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experience shared by most European nations represented by
Rome, Charlemagne, the Church. As a result, the nations of
Asia perceive each other partly 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 a 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 period, the United States is
in an excellent position to advance long-term and global

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political strategies on which close American-Japanese
relations will increasingly depend.

The most important 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 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. In the last month, the visit of Tony Lake,

President Clinton's security advisor, has opened new
perspectives for cooperation.

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

20

20

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

The danger of the existing roller coaster towards confrontation to both China and the United States and to stability and progress in Asia is incalculable. A containment policy toward China under present circumstances is a pipe dream. Unlike the containment policy of a generation ago, it will have no takers except perhaps Vietnam, turning the history of the last two decades on its head. It will force every nation of Asia to take sides with uncertain outcomes and with a guaranteed enhancement of Asian nationalism. America's ability to influence Japan will dramatically decline. Korea may turn into aWAR Tnderbox. 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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the rest of Asia against the other, encouraging virulent
nationalism. Nothing in the contemporary world calls for a
policy of isolating China; the weight of our interest 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. America seeks
Chinese cooperation on these matters as well as on a
proliferation, and on the transfer of weapons technology and on
establishing a free global trading system.

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 the Sino-American

21

Summer 1995, "The Quest for World Order."
Issued as Volume 124, Number 3, of the Proceedings of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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Henry A. Kissinger

We Live in an Age of Transition

MANY DECADES AGO, longer than I care to admit, as a young professor I went to hear a lecture by Harold Macmillan, then recently retired as Prime Minister. He began the presentation of his distilled wisdom by saying: "As they left the Garden of Eden, Adam turned to Eve and said, 'we live in an age of transition.'" That is also the theme of my remarks.

I grew up intellectually in the age of the "special relationship," which I believe to have been vital to the creation of the postwar international order. It was not a favor the United States granted to Britain; rather it was earned, first by conduct during the war and later by the enormous contribution in helping shape the Marshall Plan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and what generally came to be identified as the Cold War pattern of international relations. Britain brought crucial qualities to that relationship: experience in a multipolar world, a global orientation of mind, an experienced leadership, a commitment to security, overseas ties of not insignificant proportions, and the English language—which today you hear practiced on American television by those who are genuine and those who engage in wishful thinking.

All of those were great assets. But we are facing a new environment, and I would argue that the qualities that had made the special relationship work—broadened now to a European-American relationship—may be even more essential than they were before. This is not sufficiently said, and even when the words are uttered they express little more than respectful deference to yesterday's

Henry A. Kissinger is Chairman of Kissinger Associates, Inc.

This essay is adapted from a speech given at the "Britain in the World" Conference in London on March 29, 1995.

99

100 Henry A. Kissinger

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

The United States faces an unprecedented situation where historical roots need always to be recalled. It is the only major country in the world whose history can be precisely dated; populated almost exclusively by immigrants, it has never had a powerful neighbor along its borders, and has never had to face the problems of security confronted by less favored nations. The Americans' perception of their foreign policy was always one of nearly limitless choice and, above all, of having the ability to participate or to withdraw from international engagements at will. Every American initiative of the postwar period was presented to the American public as having a terminal date, after which America could again withdraw, allowing the underlying harmonious pattern to reassert itself.

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

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

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

We Live in an Age of Transition 101

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

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

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

102 Henry A. Kissinger

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

It is said that the United States is the only superpower left. That
is a simplistic description of the situation. It may be the only
military superpower left, but the issues susceptible to solution by
military action are in decline. The kind of power in which the
United States excels is less and less relevant to most foreseeable
international crises. On the other hand, in economics, even in
technology, the world is becoming much more evenly balanced.
Even a cursory glance at the condition of the dollar makes it clear
that the relative economic position of the United States is not what
it was even a few years ago. Indeed, we are now living in a world
composed of six or seven major global players.

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

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

We Live in an Age of Transition 103

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

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

Theoretically, the United States could pursue policy on a global basis in the manner employed by Britain in Europe throughout most of the nineteenth century: adopting a posture of “splendid isolation,” maintaining good relations with everybody but throwing its weight to the side that confers certain advantages at a specific moment (which, in the British case, was generally the weaker side). This would be a latter-day version of balance-of-power diplomacy. While that is theoretically possible, I do not believe the United States has the philosophy, the personnel, or the resources to do this on consistently a global basis, or even to elaborate it as a philosophy. Therefore, the more realistic approach to America’s foreign policy problem in the post-Cold War world is to recognize that there are fundamental differences in America’s relations with Europe, with individual countries in the Old World, and with those that exist in Asia.

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

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

104 Henry A. Kissinger

there poses not just an indirect but an explicit challenge to world order of a kind that does not exist in the heart of Europe. By linking religion and politics in a missionary concept that purports to be the only valid answer to contemporary political, social, and economic issues, in certain respects an explicit reaction to the material philosophies that have been dominant in the West, it challenges Western values across the board.

For this and many other reasons, just as at the end of World War II, the United States and the countries of Europe need to fashion a special kind of relation with each other. It is not so much that both have a common enemy, but that each is confronting comparable problems, both at home and abroad, and these can best be redressed by parallel approaches. It is not just a matter of deciding whether NATO ought to be extended into Central and Eastern Europe or how Russia's legitimate security concerns ought to be regarded, but how the old alliance, which contributed so much to the stability and prosperity of the Atlantic world for half a century, is to be made relevant to the political and economic requirements of the new era. Many parts of the world that drew few benefits from the Soviet-American "standoff" are legitimately demanding today that their interests be considered in something other than a purely military dimension.

At the end of World War II, Britain was the only major European country to have escaped occupation, to manage to preserve its institutions, and to be able to make the transition from power to influence in an extraordinary manner. It took exceptional self-discipline and skill for a nation that had been at the center of world affairs to shift its emphasis in the way that Britain did in the decades after 1945. While the Gaullist approach to the United States was to make disagreements extremely painful, the British approach was to make differences extremely embarrassing. In the long run, through a network of institutions and consultations, a general community of interests was engendered, with enormous benefit to both the United Kingdom and the United States.

Since then, many of the tacit bargains upon which Europe, America, and the European-American relationship were constructed have been altered. The end of the Cold War has been the capital event of recent years. When the division of Germany ended, the world in which France enjoyed a certain political leadership on the

We Live in an Age of Transition 105

European continent, with Germany boasting a certain economic leadership, and America linked to both through its security role, could not be maintained in its old form. West Germany, organically linked to the United States by NATO and to the European Union by France, became an even more consequential European power after unification. Britain, extremely helpful in establishing the overall framework, remained ambivalent about the European Union.

But if a part of the international order is to free itself from reliance on largely strategic considerations, it must use the American relationship with Europe (and the Western hemisphere). This is less an institutional challenge than one of applying the principles of the special relationship between America and the United Kingdom to the North Atlantic area. I do not agree with those who say that America should shift its "special relationship" to Germany. That would not be helpful to Germany and it would not be meaningful for the United States. It is not in the American interest to seek a special continental partner. Nor do I know of a single German leader who aspires to such a relation. What is really needed today is for both the United States and the European Union, together with those democratic states who are not EU members to fashion together a global policy, geared not to enemies—the security danger linked to potential threats—but to global opportunities. These are still insufficiently perceived. Provincialism is not an American monopoly.

Historically, there have been two approaches to European-American relations. One was the Gaullist approach for which in its time I have had considerable sympathy. It reflected the necessities of a country that had passed through tremendous difficulties in the War and during decolonization, that desperately needed to reafirm its identity. The second approach was that of Great Britain, a nation more secure in its identity, which sought to establish a pattern of cooperation that would be difficult to challenge. Over time, it came to reflect the convictions of both sides that their common interests transcended all their minor differences. The British approach reflected a historic tradition of global foreign policy; the French approach was geared more to calculations of the margins on which stability depended in Central Europe—particularly so long as Germany was divided. The British approach

EY

106 Henry A. Kissinger

was to establish its identity by explicitly postulating common
purposes; the French approach has been to emphasize distinctness.
During the Cold War, when the United States had the dominant
role in security, when there was only one visible international
challenge, it made some sense to define European identity by
trying to wrest it from the United States. Today, nothing is easier
than to induce America to turn away from Europe; nothing is
simpler than to convince Americans that they have no special
interest in Europe. The tasks before Europe are now so manifold
that they do not have to be granted by the United States. Issues
such as participation of the Central European countries in the
European Union will be resolved by the Europeans themselves.
There is no need for the United States to take a position or to
involve itself. Whether Europe follows a multiple geometry—which
I prefer—or becomes more closely integrated cannot and should
not be affected significantly by American pronouncements.

What is important today is that there not be too rigid separa-
tions between areas thought to be exclusively European and others
that are deemed exclusively American. What we ultimately require
is a dialogue between opinion as it has emerged in Europe and
what is beginning to emerge in America. The inventiveness of the
immediate post-World War II years needs to be looked for, but in
contexts very different from those that existed when Stalin and his
Communist successors ruled in the Kremlin. The Western civil war
that started in 1914 and ended in 1945 owes much to the fact that
the United States and its European allies and friends took counsel
together, were prepared to express their differences, but were able
in the end to collaborate, to act together.

In the United States, it is imperative that priority be given to
European relations. This has been lacking, not only in terms of
day-to-day policy, but also in the failure to take longer-range
perspectives and to act on them. Thus, for example, the debate
about NATO membership ought not to be permitted to fester
indefinitely. That issue ought to be resolved one way or the other,
everyone realizing that these are no longer the days of the Cold
War; hence it is no longer possible to build an Atlantic relationship
exclusively on security issues.

What we now need to do more urgently is create some goals for
the North Atlantic nations so that we are able to act again within

We Live in an Age of Transition 107

a common framework. We should seriously begin to examine
some form of North Atlantic free trade association, a free trade
agreement that would go beyond any that now exists. Whatever
America builds in the Western Hemisphere needs to be related to
this Atlantic enterprise, enabling us—in the foreseeable turmoil in
other parts of the world and in the shifts of emphasis that will
inevitably arise as new powers emerge—to act with purpose and
direction.

A succession of American leaders of both political parties, many
not known for excessive sentimentality (a trait not common to
those who rise to the Presidency), have over a period of more than
a generation considered it natural that, on major issues, Britain
and the United States should cooperate. The level of consultation,
though never formalized, was central to the formation of policy in
both parties in both countries. Now, the challenge is to see whether
this can be done in terms of European-American relations as well,
where Britain's experience can make a signal contribution. Europe
no longer needs to wrest its identity from the United States. In the
world of the 1990s, both know their strengths and their weak-
nesses. It serves no purpose to dwell endlessly on either. The more
imperative issue is whether they appreciate their common interests
and are seeking to foster new forms of cooperation to serve those
interests. The nations of the North Atlantic, representing a compa-
rable civilization in a world in which democracy and economic
progress remain our hope but not our guarantee, are required to
do again, this time on a global basis, what they attempted so
successfully to do a generation ago.

We must, of course, consider the integrating influence of
the industrial system of the latter part of our century. What-
ever the arguments in favor of the maintenance of the nation-
state, it is, economically speaking, becoming increasingly dif-
ficult for the latter to preserve its complete independence
unless it is very large or (paradoxically) very primitive. The
great "automated" factories of our age require huge "home
markets" if they are to sell their goods at a profit. In the long
run the maintenance of tariff barriers around medium-sized
states can produce only unemployment and economic dis-
tress. But if customs unions are formed then more and more
"integration" becomes inevitable. The nation-states concerned
may try to resist this process; but the only choice in front of
them, assuming the process of industrialization continues, is
between union among themselves or absorption by one of the
existing super-states.

Lord Gladwyn

From "World Order and the Nation-State—
A Regional Approach"

*Dædalus* 95 (2) (Spring 1966)

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee:

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

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

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

## The New International Environment

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

2

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

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

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

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

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

3

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

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

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

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

4

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

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

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

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

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

5

6

7

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

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

US European Policy

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

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

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

8

[Y]

pressure as well as protection against excessive European
nationalism.

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

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

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

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

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

9

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

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

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

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

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

10

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

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

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

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

11

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

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

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

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

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

12

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

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

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

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

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

13

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

This leads to the following conclusions:

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

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

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

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

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

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

14

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

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

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

## Asian Policy

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

But American interests in Asia go far beyond the
economic realm. There is a fundamental political interest
to prevent the nations of Asia from forming a bloc inimical
to America's purposes either because of the emergence of a
hegemonic 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.

15

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

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

- 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

16

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

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

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.

A part of Italy

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.

and global

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

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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
town. 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. It 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.

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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

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.