JUL-09-1995 21:38 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.03

3

major country in the world whose history can be precisely dated. Populated almost exclusively by immigrants, it has country taken as many experienced 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 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 so 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 between individuals, and, when that did not

R-96%

07-09-95 09:42PM P003 #32

JUL-09-1995 21:41 FROM

TO WASHINGTON OFF P.09

[Y]

9

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 <u>emerging from</u> <u>reversing</u> <u>the</u> <u>war</u>

<u>its</u> <u>leadership</u> <u>is</u> <u>changing.</u> <u>Japan</u> <u>is</u> <u>emerging</u> <u>from</u>
<u>multiple</u> <u>withdrawal.</u> <u>Many</u> <u>economic</u> <u>powerhouses</u> <u>are</u> <u>politically</u>
<u>fragile</u>, <u>especially</u> <u>in Asia</u> <u>the Middle East</u> <u>and</u> <u>the</u> <u>rest</u> <u>of</u>

How is American foreign policy to be defined in such a
period? Theoretically, the United States could pursue a
<u>priceless</u> <u>policy on a global basis</u> <u>in the manner employed by</u> Britain
<u>in Europe</u> throughout most of the 19th century: <u>adopting</u> a
<u>posture of</u> "splendid isolation," <u>maintaining good relations</u>
<u>wherever possible</u>, <u>with everybody</u> <u>but throwing its weight to the side that</u>
confers certain advantages at a specific moment (which, in
the British case, was generally <u>the weaker side</u>). This
<u>the European</u> would be a latter-day version <u>of</u> <u>balance-of-power</u> diplomacy.
There are, however, huge obstacles to this. The first is
<u>that, whereas Britain needed to</u> <u>conduct this policy in</u> <u>the</u> <u>primarily</u>

R=96%

07-09-95 09:42PM

P009 #32

JUL-09-1995 21:42 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.11

11

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. They 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. The Vietnam War is seen by
not just
as a terrible mistake—the defining experience of their
generation—and guides much of their thinking about War and
war as an instrument of power in service of peace. Their experience in respect to Vietnam has shaped
their thinking about the new post-Cold War world, as many
led theationale for
who deplored America's role in World War I used its

R-96%

07-09-95 09:42PM

P011 #32

JUL-09-1995 21:44 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.15

14

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 was that US leadership in pursuit of the national interest should be reined in and not go beyond the attainable global consensus. "If you believe we should deal with these problems in a multilateral way," proclaimed the President, "the United States has got to work through the United Nations, and all of our views may not always prevail."

So passive a view of foreign policy has tended to produce stagnation: Multilateral diplomacy is proving starkly at variance with the realities of ethnic conflict, rampant nationalism and the emergence of multiple centers of

R=96%

07-09-95 09:42PM P015 #32

JUL-09-1995 21:45 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.16

[Y]

shelved earlier. 15 erasers In this fragmented world, multilateralism leads power either to abdication (Bosnia) or to sacrifices not tolerated by the American public because they are not perceived to reflect basic US interests (Somalia).

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

R=96%

07-09-95 09:42PM P016 #32

JUL-09-1995 21:45 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.17

[x]

16

US European Policy

For over a generation
If a policy based on shared values is to have any
operational meaning, it must begin with the Atlantic
 Alliance, which unites the oldest functioning democracies
with genuinely pluralistic systems and economies based on
the market. In the end, the nations of the Atlantic area
in their own self-machted
need each other. 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 that does not
reflect its national genius. Without Europe, America's path
crossed by all we forget & will cross
will be lonely, without America, Europe's role will approach
irrelevance. This is why America concluded twice in this
to prevent the elimination
of Europe by potentially
leaving pure.

R-96%

07-09-95 09:42PM P017 #32

JUL-09-1995 21:46 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.18

17

> century that the domination of Eurasia by a hegemonic power
> threatens its vital interests, and has gone to war to
> prevent it.

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 revanchism.

An American presence in Europe provides a measure of
> assurance
> equilibrium. It gives France a safety net against German
> security and Germany an emotional harbor as Europe's
> hegemony and Germany an emotional harbor as European
> against Russian pressure
> unification slows down as well as protection against
> outside dangers and excessive European nationalism. Even
> Russia has much to gain from an American presence, which is

R-96%

07-09-95 09:42PM P018 #32

JUL-09-1995 21:46 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.19

GT]

18

one of the best guarantees against the reemergence of
historical European rivalries.

Nor 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. An America cut
off from Europe would lose an anchor of its foreign policy.

There are new threats 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 in order to wish to preserve the Atlantic
system of regular consultation; and the existing
military forces and policies option, pressure in
addition provides a vital, perhaps indispensable,
resource for this period of transition.

But the importance of close relations with Europe goes
beyond the traditional catalogue of threats. Though I

R-96%

07-09-95 09:42PM P019 #32

JUL-09-1995 21:50 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.01

19

believe the time has come for America to develop a concept
of the national interest and apply it in a balance-of-power

I believe it is equally necessary to limit
context, this will work only if we reduce the regions for

this kind of foreign policy as much as possible and extend
a limit to their areas where a more cooperative--even Wilsonian--approach

is feasible.

the areas where a more cooperative--even Wilsonian--approach
is feasible.

Russia is as yet tooucheate and unformed to function
as the anchor of American foreign policy. 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 Clinton Administration has put forward an

R-96%

07-09-95 09:56PM

P001 #33

JUL-09-1995 21:54 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.06

22

intentions. This is what President Clinton describes as the
truly new aspect of the Partnership: "for the first time all
nation states really do respect the territorial integrity of
one another." No wonder that the Partnership is based on
the proposition that the extension of NATO to Eastern Europe
is "provocative" and "divisive." The Partnership is in fact
a replay of the Locarno Treaty of the 1920s, when Great
Britain, eager to avoid an alliance with France, settled for
a German recognition of the French frontier
where of which France was most fearful.

If present trends continue, NATO policy will become
increasingly rudderless. Despite ritualistic assertions to
the contrary, the Administration's Atlantic policy is
creating two categories of frontier in Europe: those that
are guaranteed are not threatened, and those that are
threatened are not guaranteed. The result is a gray area in
Eastern and Central Europe that the nations affected find

R=96%

07-09-95 09:56PM P006 #33

JUL-09-1995 21:54 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.07

democratically 23
severely disquieting, and that can only tempt dangerous tendencies on both sides of the issue.

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, (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 <u>rogue tendencies</u>.
For NATO <u>is</u> designed to defend its members against threats
from outside the NATO area, not against threats from other
NATO members.

R-96%

07-09-95 09:56PM P007 #33

JUL-09-1995 21:54 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.08

24
The Partnership for Peace will dilute what is left of the Atlantic Alliance into a vague multilateralism. When Gorbachev first put forward the idea of a Common European House extending from Vancouver to Vladivostok, his purpose was clearly to make the Atlantic Alliance less relevant. For Washington now to go all the way and, in effect, to equate the Atlantic Alliance with the Common European House is to signal the decline of NATO.

When Russia is as eligible for 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? What different remains between NATO and the new Partnership for Peace? 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. Though the

R-96%

07-09-95 09:56PM

P008 #33

JUL-09-1995 21:56 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.11

26

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.

I support the Administration's attempts to return Russia to the international community, including its economic aid to the erstwhile adversary. 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. I also accept Yeltsin as a plausible leader of reform.

R-96%

07-09-95 09:56PM P011 #33

JUL-09-1995 21:57 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.14

29
has historically been the cause of all recent European
conflicts.

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

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

The Administration's tendency to treat Russian leaders
as if they were fragile novices easily flustered by exposure

R-96%

07-09-95 09:56PM P014 #33

JUL-09-1995 21:58 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.17

32

designed to make these new republics--all of them members of the United Nations--rue their independence. 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 acquiescence 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 foreign policy. It is in fact ambiguity about dividing lines, not their existence, and ambivalence about Western reactions, not their certainty, that tempt militarists and nationalists. Reform will be strengthened.

R-97%

07-09-95 09:56PM P017 #33

JUL-09-1995 21:59 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.18

[4]

33

if moderates are put in a position of being able to highlight the dangers of a nationalistic Russian policy.

Finally, Russia and America share a mutual interest in a stable Europe and Central Europe. This can be achieved only 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 crisis in the Atlantic Alliance can be solved only by opening a dialogue on fundamentals; previous 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.

R-96%

07-09-95 09:56PM P018 #33

JUL-09-1995 21:59 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.19

34

* The most sensitive immediate issue is NATO expansion, which the [Administration] [ Administration] put before the recent [per Dec. 19, 1994 article] NATO ministerial meeting. 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.

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 are becoming dominant.

R-97%

07-09-95 09:56PM P019 #33

82# 6004 WJ85:90 96-70-40

07-05-95 05:01:1PM

TO 01186105053197

P003

R-963

To: Ambassador Bremer, page 3 of 3.

* Total stock of US FDI in the region grew from $14 billion in 1980 to $78 billion in 1994.

* Accounting for less than 7 percent of accumulated US FDI in 1980, by 1993 the proportion had reached 13 percent.

* US companies favored Asia in the 1990s above other regions. US outward stock of FDI in Asia grew between 1990-1992 at 18 percent compared to 12 percent in Latin America and 6 percent in Europe.

## US Jobs Depend on Asia

* US exports to Asia support more than two and one-half million American jobs. One in fifty US workers were was employed as a result of US exports to countries of Asia and the Pacific rim.

* More than one-sixth of all US jobs created between 1989 and 1993 can be attributed to trade with this region.

## US Largest Equity Investor in Asia's Developing Markets

* Total market capitalization of regional exchanges, not including China or Japan, could rise to $5 trillion by 2000, a 430 percent increase from current levels and the equivalent of US exchanges today.

* Asia received for 43 percent of portfolio equity flows into the developing world in 1993.

## Asia Represents Tremendous Business Opportunity

* China is becoming the primary engine of economic growth in the region. Southern China, Hong Kong and Taiwan are fast becoming the world's fourth major "growth pole" after US, Western Europe and Japan. Chinese imports grew 25 percent in each of the last two years.

* It is estimated that infrastructure needs in Asia will absorb $600 billion in investment over the next five years.

* Asia will place 45 percent of all global orders for power generation equipment over the next ten years.

* China is fast becoming the world's largest market for commercial aircraft.

* Asia is the world's fastest growing area in terms of disposable income, with growth rates three times those of the US and Europe.

WASHINGTON OFF P.03

TO

JUL-07-1995 18:54 FROM

07-07-95 06:58PM P002 #28

R-964

The Washington Post
Monday, March 28, 1994

B

Henry Kissinger

# China: The Deadlock Can Be Broken

The debate evoked by Secretary of State Warren Christopher's visit to Beijing has been too much about whether his mission "failed" to promote human rights. The main consideration ought to be whether America's overall political relationship with perhaps the key country for long-term stability in Asia is being put at risk.

The public confrontation in Beijing was all the more dramatic because it occurred at the end of a period of steadily improving American-Chinese relations. Last October President Clinton lifted the ban on Cabinet-level meetings in effect since the Tiananmen Square uprising; shortly after, he met with Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Many Cabinet-level meetings followed. The administration significantly reduced its terms for extension of most favored nation status. The Chinese leaders hinted at a willingness to accommodate concerns not found to be incompatible with Chinese law—an elastic criterion.

What, then, went awry with a visit that had reasonably been expected to culminate this progress? Apparently the U.S. administration, very conscious of domestic pressures, thought the Chinese "owed" it human rights concessions in return for its restoring high-level contacts. But the Chinese, implementing traditional diplomacy, base concessions on reciprocity; they consider that they are "entitled" to the same unconditional high-level contacts extended to them by all other nations. They do not view the removal of a unilateral threat as a concession, and they are extraordinarily touchy regarding any hint of intervention in their domestic affairs. So long as human rights remains the principal subject of the Sino-American dialogue, deadlock is nearly inevitable.

Nevertheless, the deadlock is not unbreakable. The issue is not—as is sometimes claimed—whether America should abandon its pursuit of human rights altogether but rather how to pursue its values in balance with other crucial aspects of the complex American-Chinese relationship.

The fundamental motivation of United States human rights policy rests deep within the American tradition. No other nation has been so explicitly founded to vindicate liberty or been populated as extensively by refugees. Other nations need to take this attitude seriously: To most Americans, the national interest cannot be separated from some concern for human rights.

On the other hand, America's perception of itself as defender of human rights is so ingrained that we often forget how unusual that perspective is. Every other major country conceives foreign policy as the balancing of risks and rewards so as to affect the actions of other societies outside its borders. What Americans call human rights has generally been deemed to fall within the domestic jurisdiction of societies and thus not the subject of diplomacy. This is why not a single Asian nation supports the American human rights approach to China.

Prickly insistence on sovereignty is a particular attribute of the Chinese government. In China. Western intervention is perceived as an uninterrupted humiliation since the Opium Wars, though America is blamed less than other societies. To base Sino-American relations entirely on Chinese progress toward human rights will therefore mortgage both the underlying relationship and progress on human rights—especially as every other industrial nation will eagerly fill the vacuum left by America.

It is also a distortion of reality, since American objectives go beyond the promotion of human rights. China has the world's fastest-growing economy, and its population of over 1 billion represents the single largest market. To exclude the United States from these prospects is not a trivial decision.

More important, Asia is both the most dynamic region of the world and the one with the greatest potential to threaten world peace. Its nations have not developed the patterns of cooperation that emerged in Europe after World War II. Like the nations of 19th century Europe, the Asian states eye each other as potential strategic competitors and conduct their relationships at least in

> "A reduction of public pressures and a genuine broadening of the dialogue will produce a solution compatible with the self-respect of both sides."

part on the basis of geopolitics. Fostering an Asian equilibrium is therefore central to world peace and must be a key objective of American diplomacy.

Stability in Asia is most likely if both China and the United States participate. Conflict with China would require us to organize all the rest of Asia against Beijing. While an overbearing Chinese foreign policy could at some point in the future drive American foreign policy to such an expedient, nothing in the contemporary world calls for a policy of isolating China. No other country will participate in a policy of isolating China over human rights. America will only wind up isolating itself and lose its ability to shape a stable order.

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 country. China wants the United States to help balance its relationships with powerful neighbors—Japan, Russia and India—at least until it is strong enough to do so on its own. America needs Chinese cooperation on these matters as well as on a peaceful evolution of the future of Taiwan, on nuclear proliferation as in North Korea, and on the transfer of weapons technology.

These are the sort 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 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 to be withheld at will.

WASHINGTON OFF P.02 TO

JUL-07-1995 18:53 FROM

JUL-10-1995 00:04 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.03

The following statistics show the increasing importance
of Asian economic progress.

Asia's Importance to the World Economy

* APEC represents half of the world's GNP and population, and soon half of its trade.

* The World Bank estimates that developing countries in Asia will average growth of 7.5 percent in 1995 and 1996, faster than anywhere else.

* East Asia and the Pacific received 55 percent of total Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) into the developing world in 1993. China alone accounted for 38 percent of the total FDI into the developing world.

Importance of Asia to US Economy

Asia Surpasses Europe as the US' Largest Trading Partner

R-96%

07-10-95 12:08AM P003 #36

JUL-10-1995 00:04 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.04

38

* The US now does 40 percent of its trade across the Pacific, up from 24 percent in 1980. Transatlantic trade represents one-third of US total.

* In 1994, US exports to Asia, including Japan, were approximately $150 billion, 30 percent greater than exports to the European Union (EU).

* US exports to Asia had an annual average percentage growth of 10 percent from 1982 through 1993; to the EU and Japan, US exports grew 5 percent and 7 percent, respectively, for the same period.

## South and Southeast Asia Are Good Customers

* ASEAN is the US' fifth largest export market (US-ASEAN trade has grown 17 percent per year for the past decade.)

R-96%

07-10-95 12:08AM P004 #36

JUL-10-1995 00:04 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.05

39

* The US now exports more to Singapore than to Italy, more to Malaysia than to the former USSE, and more to Indonesia than to Central and Eastern Europe.

* Merchandise-trade between Singapore and Taiwan and the US is now 20 percent greater than US merchandise trade with Germany.

* The US is India's largest trading partner, taking 18 percent of its exports and the source of 12 percent of its imports.

## Asia Attracts Substantial US Investment

* The US holds the largest stock of direct foreign investment in Asia. Japan is the recipient of approximately half of US total.

R=96%

07-10-95 12:08AM P005 #36

JUL-10-1995 00:05 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.06

40

US jobs depend on Asia

* US exports to Asia support more than two and one-half million American jobs. One in fifty US workers was employed as a result of US exports to countries of Asia and the Pacific Rim.

R-96%

07-10-95 12:08AM P006 #36

JUL-10-1995 00:06 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.09

[M]

43

internationalism and at a minimum will modify existing
alliances including the Japanese-American alliance.

Japan is changing its political institutions and probably the orientation of its postwar foreign policy. The electoral system is changing with as yet unpredictable consequences. But even though it is likely that when the process is completed, after one or two more elections, a new dominant political party will appear, and its character from what it was four years ago will change. 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 process of
transition from Deng Xiaoping to the next generation of

R-96%

07-10-95 12:08AM P009 #36

JUL-10-1995 00:06 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF

P.11

itself in a state of flux and for their leaders increasingly
unpredictable. Let us illustrate these trends with a few
examples.

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
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 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

R-96%

07-10-95 12:08AM

P011 #36

JUL-10-1995

00:07

FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF

P.12

46
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 deal with problems directly with the United States. South Korean unease with this process (publicly understated) clashes to some (often 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. Too South Korea is aware that China and even more Japan do not share, to put it mildly, its own aspiration to unification, increasing its own nationalism.

R-96%

07-10-95 12:08AM

P012 #36

JUL-10-1995 00:07 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.13

47

The nations of Southeast Asia can be divided into those
which are afraid above all 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 then in Delhi. This
will lead to 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
the basic difference between the nations of Europe and of

R-96%

07-10-95 12:08AM P013 #36

JUL-09-1995 23:57 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.01

[4]

48

Asia. 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 a Pacific Community
notwithstanding, the nations of Asia perceive each other as
strategic rivals and potential threats (excluding the
relations of the ASEAN nations--except Vietnam--to each
other). They are at least as conscious of their rivalries
as they are potential with each other for any common purposes.

This state of affairs in fact provides considerable
scope for a long-range American foreign policy geared to a
close perception of the national interest. For the
conflicts of the Asian nations with each other are more
deep-seated than any disagreements with each other. In a
with the United States

R=96%

07-10-95 12:03AM

P001 #35

JUL-09-1995 23:59

FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF

P.04

[Y]

and more recently a 51 once Tainan.
vicious cycle of action and reaction, Having just returned
from Beijing, I want to say in the most solemn way that our
two countries are again on a collision course. A general
review of American foreign policy does not afford the
opportunity to go into the details of every issue. But it
makes it necessary to stress in the most insistent manner
why US-China relations are important and why they must not
be jeopardized lightly, if indeed at all.

Stability in Asia is most likely if both China and the
United States participate. Conflict with China would cause
us to organize all the rest of Asia against China.
While an overbearing Chinese foreign policy could at some
point in the future drive American foreign policy to such an
expedient, nothing in the contemporary world calls for a
policy of isolating China. No other country will
participate in a policy of isolating China; America will

R=96%

07-10-95 12:03AM

P004 #35

JUL-09-1995 23:59 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.05

[M]

52

~~only wind up isolating itself and lose its ability to shape~~

a stable order...

For the next decade or so,

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 country--China wants the United States to help balance its relationships with powerful neighbors--Japan, Russia and India--at least until it is strong enough to do so on its own. America needs Chinese cooperation on these matters as well as on a peaceful evolution of the future of Taiwan, on nuclear proliferation, and on the transfer of weapons technology.

These are the sort 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,

R-96%

07-10-95 12:03AM P005 #35

JUL-09-1995 23:59 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.06

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 to ~~will not accept~~ ~~will~~ be withheld 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 Li Teng-hui of Taiwan. But the issue would not have taken on such dimension had there not been the culmination of a series of US actions perceived as unilateral and high-handed in Beijing, just as Chinese activities are being interpreted as prevention of the central issues now looming before the two governments are proliferation, human rights and, overshadowing everything else, Taiwan. A general review of past cold war foreign policy is not the occasion to stress such detail on each of these issues. I will takemittel to meet the要求 of the P56 resolution to many friends.

But I need & explain why it is not the case that Taiwan is so far away from us & to p.56 from many others.

R=96%

07-10-95 12:03AM

P006 #35

JUL-10-1995 00:00 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.07

Of these, the proliferation issue seems to me the most
accessible to solution once normal relations are restored.
It would help in the future if Beijing were invited to such
a dialogue from the beginning rather than be confronted with
a completed international agreement in the negotiation of
which it was not invited to participate and from the control
mechanism of which it is excluded.

The issue of human rights is more complex. The issue
is not--as is sometimes claimed--whether America should
abandon its pursuit of human rights but rather how to pursue
its values in balance with other crucial aspects of the
complex American-Chinese relationship.

The fundamental motivation of United States human
rights policy rests deep within the American tradition. No
other nation has been so explicitly founded to vindicate
liberty or been populated as extensively by refugees. Other
nations need to take this attitude seriously: to most

R-96%

07-10-95 12:03AM P007 #35

JUL-10-1995 00:00 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.08

55

Prickly insistence on sovereignty is a particular attribute of the Chinese government. In China, Western intervention is perceived as an uninterrupted humiliation since the Opium Wars, though America is blamed less than other societies. To base Sino-American relations entirely

R-96%

07-10-95 12:03AM P008 #35

JUL-10-1995 00:00 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.09

on Chinese progress toward human rights will therefore mortgage both the underlying relationship and progress on human rights--especially as every other industrial nation will eagerly fill the vacuum left by America.

The challenge is not whether to pursue human rights but how best to balance this objective with other vital American interests.

The issue of Taiwan is by far the most explosive. To many Americans, the issue appears as the sovereign American

R-96%

07-10-95 12:03AM

P009 #35

JUL-10-1995 00:01 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.11

[Y]

If China perceives that Taiwan is being gradually led to a situation where it would prefer to fight over a small part of a retainer than a large one, then this lesson, even though its army was inferior in technology and suffered heavy casualties. Beijing and Washington seem now on a collision course which, if continued, will prove extremely costly to both sides and threatening to international stability. See p.60 A general view

The following factors seem relevant:

* Starting in 1971, the United States committed itself to a one-China policy. This was elaborated explicitly to mean that it would neither encourage nor support a two-China policy or a one-China, one-Taiwan policy. Four American presidents of both parties, including President Reagan, undertook these commitments. In pursuit of them, the United States ended diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

* At the same time, from the very beginning, the United States affirmed its interest in a

R=96%

07-10-95 12:03AM P011 #35

59

peaceful resolution of the issues between
Beijing and Taipei. It has also maintained
economic ties with Taiwan and supplied arms,
pushing against the limits of agreements on
that subject (such as in the sale of F-16s to
Taiwan).

* A number of practical arrangements evolved over a sixteen-year period to give effect to these different perceptions. Despite occasional frictions and disagreements, these have worked well enough to keep tensions below an unacceptable level.

* In recent years, these arrangements have been eroding, partly as a result of pressures from the Congress and Taiwan and the unwillingness or inability of the Administration to define

R-96%

07-10-95 12:03AM P012 #35

JUL-10-1995 00:01 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.13

60
a course the various parties could understand
or support.

All this has brought us on a collision course with Beijing. A general review of American foreign policy is not the occasion to review individual decisions. It is, however, appropriate for a general appeal to all parties to step back from the brink before irreparable damage is done. The danger to both China and the United States and to stability and progress in Asia is incalculable. A containment policy as 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 but with a guaranteed enhancement of Asian nationalism. The American ability to influence Japan will

R-96%

07-10-95 12:03AM P013 #35

JUL-10-1995 00:02 FROM

TO

WASHINGTON OFF P.14

61

Jody: this is the end
Please take pages 10 to 16 out

Nations with hegemonical aspirations...
dramatically decline. The economic damage to
Nations with hegemonical aspirations...
-or even territorial claims--will sense new opportunities.

China will try to organize these same nations into a
grouping to oppose American arrogance--a process whose
beginning can already be noticed. The European nations will
eagerly step into the economic vacuum--a process whose
outlines are already discernible. The economic damage to
America will be grievous (?).

To be sure, China may suffer even greater economic
damage, and it is even more vulnerable to unleashed Asian
nationalism. But this will prove little consolation in the
midst of the decline in restraints that collapsing
confidence in American leadership will produce. I am aware
that there is a school of thought holding that China will in
the end recoil or perhaps even collapse as the Soviet Union
did. I do not believe in the analogy, and I warn against
playing chicken with the fate of nations.

I believe
that China must be a major player on the stage of
international steps we are taking in the Washington Playbook
to end the Cold War and to prevent a new thermonuclear
 arms race beginning.

R-96%

TOTAL P.14
07-10-95 12:03AM P014 #35

TO: HAK

FROM: LPB June 21, 1995

SUBJECT: Materials for SFRC Testimony

I have gone through your articles, speeches and statements for the past 8 months and pulled out relevant passages. I suggest you organize your presentation in six areas:

1. Structure of the post-cold war world

2. Defining American Interests in that world

3. Europe (including NATO and Russia)

4. Asia

5. Western Hemisphere

6. Other issues (Middle East, Non-proliferation, peackeeping, etc). In the interest of time, you may want to simply leave these points for Qs and As.

The material is organized according to this outline in the attached tabs.

4

STATEMENT OF HON. HENRY A. KISSINGER, FORMER
SECRETARY OF STATE

The United States finds itself at this moment in, for it, an un-
precedented situation. We have had an extraordinary success in ac-
complishing almost everything we set out to do at the end of World
War II. If you compare what American leaders were saying in the
late 1940s and early 1950s about our objectives and our purposes
with what happened in the late 1980s and early 1990s, you will
find a degree of correspondence for which I find no previous exam-
ple in history. It has, however, left us in a position that George
Bernard Shaw once described as follows: there are two tragedies in
life. One is to fail to fulfill your heart's desires, and the second is
to fulfill your heart's desires.

We have transcended the world we inherited at the end of World
War II. I agree with Senator Hutchison. It took us 3 or 4 years at
the end of World War II to come up with a concept, a strategy, to
have our domestic debate, but after that, it is astonishing with
what degree of bipartisan commitment it was carried out until the
collapse of the Soviet Union during the Reagan and Bush adminis-
trations. We do not have a similar consensus at this moment, and
I believe it is important for the United States to develop a strategy
appropriate for the period in which we find ourselves.

As a Nation, we have had a unique international position. No
other major nation has been populated almost entirely by immi-
grants. No other major nation has a definite date to which you can
ascribe its origin. Above all, no other major nation has lived with-
out powerful neighbors, and therefore the United States has had to
believe, for the greatest part of its history, even during the Cold
War, that the degree of its involvement was largely up to it. Almost
all of the great programs of even the Cold War period, like the
Marshall Plan, were presented as relatively short-term programs,
as terminal programs, at the end of which the need for that sort
of commitment would disappear. Almost all our international com-
mitments were triggered by a specific enemy, ideological or strate-
gic, and in the Cold War they were the same. It was both an ideol-
ogical and a strategic enemy.

In the period into which we are now heading, there is no clearcut
ideological enemy, or maybe there are several ideological adversar-
ies. There is no overwhelming strategic adversary, and yet the
American capacity to play a role and to intervene can be the major
stabilizing element in many parts of the world. It is not possible
to present final solutions to many of the problems that we see in
front of us, and we live in a paradoxical world in which the econ-
omy, communications, have become global, while at the same time
more and more small states are coming into being that feel no re-
sponsibility to any global international system or to international
stability. These are the dilemmas and challenges within which
American foreign policy has to be conducted. Let me very briefly
touch a few of the key areas as I see them.

Remarks by Henry Kissinger

B.C. Lee Lecture

Four Seasons Hotel

February 1, 1995

Now the United States finds itself in a unique position in terms of its past. All its previous foreign involvements were triggered by the perception of some specific threat. Each major effort of the United States was viewed by its leaders as bringing about some sort of terminal point after which the world would live in an atmosphere of reconciliation. Thus all of the great initiatives of the post-World War II period were given terminal dates. Today, we dwell in a world without a clear-cut strategic adversary. We

live also in a world without a specific ideological enemy, or many ideological adversaries, whichever way one wants to put it. We have not yet developed, and we may not be able to develop, a concept of some kind of terminal point toward which we are working. And yet, at this precise moment, we are the strongest military power, the only super power, the most vital economic power, and a nation on whose actions as much depends as it did in the immediate post-World War II period.

Yet in the immediate post-World War II period, we were re-enacting to some extent the two seminal national experiences of this half-century: overcoming the Great Depression of the 1930s, and overcoming our enemies in World War II. In the period into which we are now heading, we do not have such clear cut agendas or precedents of approach. So, there must be a debate in America. It will not be easy to formulate a bi-partisan approach under present conditions because the premises are not self-evident. There is a big difference between whether one believes that all problems must be dealt with primarily multilaterally, or whether there has to be a clear definition of a national interest. It makes a difference whether one believes that alliances are still valid or whether one believes that alliances are a vestige of a forgotten or transcended period and can therefore be largely ignored. I am struck by the fact that in very few of the public statements of our politicians does one find what used to be almost ritualistic statements about the Atlantic Alliance and other alliances. Precisely because they were ritualistic, they provided a fundamental anchor in the days when I was in government as they did before and after. It would have been impossible to clear a presidential speech about foreign policy if it did not mention the Atlantic Alliance or our relationship with Korea or other allies - even if it made for a very general sentence; today, general speeches which make no NATO reference are the rule. I point this out only to illustrate that a philosophical issue must be there.

The traditional American premise that there was some general principle which could be applied equally in every part of the world - for example containment - or the spread of democracy as the principal goal of foreign policy, is very difficult to apply in the present period. In a way, it is probably what led us into the tragedy of Vietnam which is to say that, even during the Cold War period, it did not apply fully. In the present period, the United States has to begin with some concept of its national interest in various regions of the world, and that national interest must of course encompass our moral and social values but it must also relate these to other concerns.

Henry A. Kissinger

We Live in an Age of Transition

The United States faces an unprecedented situation where his-
torical roots need always to be recalled. It is the only major
country in the world whose history can be precisely dated; popu-
lated almost exclusively by immigrants, it has never had a power-
ful neighbor along its borders, and has never had to face the
problems of security confronted by less favored nations. The Ameri-
cans' 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 pat-
tern to reassert itself.

This explains why almost all of America's foreign policy has
traditionally been presented in alternately psychiatric and theo-
logical 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 alto-
gether 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."

Henry A. Kissinger

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

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

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.

As we look around the world, we find that there are five or six major power centers: the U.S., Europe, Russia, China, Japan, probably India, and possibly Brazil. These power centers have more or less equal capacity to affect the major events of our period. It is said that the United States is the only superpower. But the United States is the only superpower primarily in the military field, and the issues which can be settled by military means are diminishing. Moreover the military categories — nuclear weapons — in which we are the strongest are not relevant to many of the crises which now exist — such as the Balkans. If you look at the American dollar, you realize that we are not the only superpower economically — to put it mildly. In a world in which there are five or six more or less equal powers, a whole new challenge presents itself before the United States.

The challenge is, first of all, that there are no longer definitive solutions to our problems. Every major post-war initiative of the United States has been presented as having a terminal solution to a specific problem. In the world in which we now live, there are no such definitive solutions. Every solution is the admission price to some other problem. This is no news to most other countries, but it is unprecedented for America. Secondly, in such a world there are basically only two ways of achieving order. One is by hegemony and the other is by equilibrium. To say this at a European university is a platitude; to say it at an American university is an invitation to a riot — at least by the faculty. If you say, in most countries, that America now has to define its national interest and that it has to learn to relate its national interest to the national interest of other

countries, one is stating the obvious. In America, that statement is extraordinarily controversial. I wrote a book last year, to which our Chairman kindly referred, in which I made this, among other points. Many of its reviewers took strong exception to that proposition.

The secret dream of American intellectuals and of those who laid down the basic principles of American foreign policy is essentially theological: it is to prevail by conversion, not the balance of power, and to make other peoples democratic. For when they become democratic, it is believed they will become automatically peaceful. Moreover, the faith is that this can be achieved and is desirable in every part of the world more or less simultaneously.

As I said, the United States faces a philosophically unique
situation. Among the great powers, no other nation can say that
its history began on a specific date or that it was populated
entirely, or almost entirely, by immigrants. Moreover, America has
never had a powerful neighbour or really felt threatened, until
very recently. Therefore foreign policy has always had a different
character in the United States than anywhere else. There has been
in the United States, precisely because most of the population came
from the middle class, a view that America had about it a
missionary quality, indeed a duty. The way to seek peace was not
by the methods of European diplomacy but by transforming the whole
world and making that world democratic. This has led to great
achievements but it has also led recently to some tragedies, as
when we tried to export democracy to South-East Asia under
conditions for which there was no historical preparation and in
which the strategic necessities were quite different from the ones
we knew from Europe. NATO too was for America a fulfilment of its
democratic tradition and a validation of the American experience
in World War II, when it organized overwhelming force against a
recognized evil.

Broadly speaking, the Cold War with its two-power world
coincided with the American genius for large-scale mobilization of
resources and capacity for overwhelming dedication to big causes.
Without sounding nationalistic, I cannot think of any other major
country that would, as the United States did at the end of World
War II, dedicate itself to the spread of its technology around the
world thus creating economic competitors to itself; to building up
defeated enemies; and to convincing itself that this was its
contribution to peace. I think these were major achievements. But
now we live in a different world. There are no clear-cut enemies,
no central ideological conflict. It is not possible, as it was
throughout the Cold War, to develop a general concept and to apply
it uniformly all over the world. We will henceforth be obliged to
recognize special circumstances and to calculate rewards and
penalties the way nations in less favourable environments than ours
have always had to do. Now this will require a big emotional
adjustment in the United States.

The United States' foreign policy is unique among the great powers. It is the only major country whose history can be precisely dated, namely there is a precise date from which you can say that America has existed. It is the only major country that is populated almost entirely by immigrants turning away from their own societies, and the only major country that has never had a powerful neighbor on its border. It therefore is the only major country that, until very recently, believed that the decision whether to engage in foreign policy at all was largely up to its own leaders. For no other nation was the idea of such isolationism even conceivable. Thus America has oscillated between a missionary and an isolationist tendency; between thinking that it was too good for this world and believing that it had a mandate to re-educate the entire world. The American approach to foreign policy has almost always been extraordinarily moralistic and ideological. When America entered the First World War, it transformed what had been a typical European war with heavier casualties than normal into a war to spread democracy all over the world and to replace existing governments. And there is no tradition of geopolitical analysis in American foreign policy.

For all these reasons, America right now finds the post-Cold War world to be a somewhat unsettling experience. The Cold War world was difficult, but it recalled two seminal American experiences - the experience of World War II, and the experience of the New Deal. There was as well the conviction that we were dealing with absolute Evil. Indeed, President Reagan, as late as 1982, could call the Soviet Union the "Evil Empire". And there was also the belief that by closing the gap between expectation and reality in the economic field, political stability could be achieved. On the whole, these assumptions turned out to be correct.

The United States now finds itself in the position of having achieved almost everything - indeed everything - it had set out to do, say in 1950. It is very rare

in history that you can point out such a close correspondence between what
leaders said they wanted to achieve and what they in fact accomplished. Yet as
George Bernard Shaw once said, there are two tragedies in life: the first tragedy
is to fail to fulfill your heart's desire, and the second tragedy is to fulfill your
heart's desire. That, now is the position of the United States.

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

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

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

AFTER VICTORY:
DEFINING AN AMERICAN ROLE IN AN UNCERTAIN WORLD

A NATIONAL POLICY CONFERENCE

PRESENTED BY
NIXON CENTER FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM

AND
THE RICHARD NIXON LIBRARY AND BIRTHPLACE

LUNCHEON KEYNOTE ADDRESS

AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY AND THE POST-COLD WAR ERA

SPEAKER:

THE HONORABLE HENRY A. KISSINGER

56TH SECRETARY OF STATE

MAYFLOWER HOTEL, WASHINGTON, DC

THURSDAY, MARCH 2, 1995

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

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

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

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